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mational lEbition 



The Writings of 

Abraham Lincoln 



Edited by 

Arthur Brooks Lapsley 



With an Introduction by 

Theodore Roosevelt 



Together with 

The Essay on Lincoln, by Carl Schurz 

The Address on Lincoln, by Joseph H. Choate 

and The Life of Lincoln, by Noah Brooks 



Volume One 

1 832-1 843 



The Lamb Publishing Company 

New York 



.9/ 



Copyright, 1905 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



XSbt Vtnfcberbocliec preee, new Stocls 



.1 



INTRODUCTORY 

IMMEDIATELY after Lincoln's re-election to the 
Presidency, in an off-hand speech, delivered in 
response to a serenade by some of his admirers on 
the evening of November lo, 1864, he spoke as 
follows : 

''It has long been a grave question whether any gov- 
ernment not too strong for the liberties of its people can 
be strong enough to maintain its existence in great 
emergencies. On this point, the present rebellion 
brought our republic to a severe test, and the Presidential 
election, occurring in regular course during the rebellion, 
added not a little to the strain. . . . The strife of 
the election is but human nature practically applied to 
the facts in the case. What has occurred in this case 
must ever occur in similar cases. Human nature will 
not change. In any future great national trial, com- 
pared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and 
as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good. 
Let us therefore study the incidents in this as philosophy 
to learn wisdom from and none of them as wrongs to be 
avenged. . . . Now that the election is over, may 
not all having a common interest reunite in a common 
effort to save our common country? For my own part. 



iv Introductory 

I have striven and shall strive to avoid placing any 
obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here, I 
have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's bosom. 
While I am deeply sensible to the high compliment of 
a re-election and duly grateful, as I trust, to Almighty 
God for having directed my countrymen to a right con- 
clusion, as I think for their own good, it adds nothing 
to my satisfaction that any other man may be disap- 
pointed or pained by the result.'' 

This speech has not attracted much general atten- 
tion, yet it is in a pecuHar degree both illustrative 
and typical of the great statesman who made it, alike 
in its strong common-sense and in its lofty standard 
of morality. Lincoln's life, Lincoln's deeds and 
words, are not only of consuming interest to the his- 
torian, but should be intimately known to every man 
engaged in the hard practical work of American po- 
litical life. It is difficult to overstate how much it 
means to a nation to have as the two foremost figures 
in its history men like Washington and Lincoln. It 
is good for every man in any way concerned in public 
life to feel that the highest ambition any American 
can possibly have will be gratified just in proportion 
as he raises himself toward the standards set by 
these two men. 

It is a very poor thing, whether for nations or 
individuals, to advance the history of great deeds 



Introductory v 

done in the past as an excuse for doing poorly in 
the present; but it is an excellent thing to study 
the history of the great deeds of the past, and of the 
great men who did them, with an earnest desire to 
profit thereby so as to render better service in the 
present. In their essentials, the men of the present 
day are much like the men of the past, and the live 
issues of the present can be faced to better advan- 
tage by men who have in good faith studied how the 
leaders of the nation faced the dead issues of the past. 
Such a study of Lincoln's life will enable us to avoid 
the twin gulfs of immorality and inefficiency — the 
gulfs which always lie one on each side of the careers 
alike of man and of nation. It helps nothing to have 
avoided one if shipwreck is encountered in the other. 
The fanatic, the well-meaning moralist of unbalanced 
mind, the parlor critic who condemns others but has 
no power himself to do good and but little power to 
do ill — all these were as alien to Lincoln as the vicious 
and unpatriotic themselves. His life teaches our 
people that they must act with wisdom, because 
otherwise adherence to right will be mere sound and 
fury without substance ; and that they must also act 
high-mindedly, or else what seems to be wisdom will 
in the end turn out to be the most destructive kind 
of folly. 

Throughout his entire life, and especially after he 
rose to leadership in his party, Lincoln was stirred 



vi Introductory 

to his depths by the sense of fealty to a lofty ideal; 
but throughout his entire life, he also accepted human 
nature as it is, and worked with keen, practical good 
sense to achieve results with the instruments at hand. 
It is impossible to conceive of a man farther removed 
from baseness, farther removed from corruption, 
from mere self-seeking; but it is also impossible to 
conceive of a man of more sane and healthy mind — 
a man less under the influence of that fanta^stic and 
diseased morality (so fantastic and diseased as to be 
in reality profoundly immoral) which makes a man 
in this work-a-day world refuse to do what is possible 
because he cannot accomplish the impossible. 

In the fifth volume of Lecky's History of England, 
the historian draws an interesting distinction be- 
tween the qualities needed for a successful political 
career in modern society and those which lead to 
eminence in the spheres of pure intellect or pure 
moral effort. He says: 

" — the moral qualities that are required in the higher 
spheres of statesmanship [are not] those of a hero or 
a saint. Passionate earnestness and self-devotion, 
complete concentration of every faculty on an unselfish 
aim, uncalculating daring, a delicacy of conscience 
and a loftiness of aim far exceeding those of the aver- 
age of men, are here likely to prove rather a hindrance 
than an assistance. The politician deals very largely 



Introductory vii 

with the superficial and the commonplace; his art is in 
a great measure that of skilful compromise, and in the 
conditions of modern life, the statesman is likely to 
succeed best who possesses secondary qualities to an 
unusual degree, who is in the closest intellectual and 
moral sympathy with the average of the intelligent men 
of his time, and who pursues common ideals with 
more than common ability. . . . Tact, business 
talent, knowledge of men, resolution, promptitude and 
sagacity in dealing with immediate emergencies, a 
character which lends itself easily to conciliation, 
diminishes friction and inspires confidence, are espe- 
cially needed, and they are more likely to be found 
among shrewd and enlightened men of the world than 
among men of great original genius or of an heroic type 
of character." 

The American people should feel profotmdly 
grateful that the greatest American statesman since 
Washington, the statesman who in this absolutely 
democratic republic succeeded best, was the very 
man who actually combined the two sets of qualities 
which the historian thus puts in antithesis. Abraham 
Lincoln, the rail-splitter, the Western country lawyer, 
was one of the shrewdest and most enlightened men 
of the world, and he had all the practical qualities 
which enable such a man to guide his countrymen; 
and yet he was also a genius of the heroic type, a 



Vlll 



Introductory- 



leader who rose level to the greatest crisis through 
which this nation or any other nation had to pass in 
the nineteenth century. 



Sagamore Hill, 

Oyster Bay, N. Y., 
September 22, 1905. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction. Theodore Roosevelt . . . . iii 

Editor's Preface . . xv 

Abraham Lincoln. An Essay. Carl Schurz . . i 
Abraham Lincoln. Memorial Address. Joseph H. 

Choate 77 

1832 

Address to the People of Sangamon County, March 9th . 123 

1833 

To E. C. Blankenship, August loth . . . .129 

To Mr. Spears 130 

1836 

Announcement of Political Views, June 13th . '131 

To Robert Allen, June 21st 132 

To Miss Mary Owens, December 13th .... 133 

1837 

Speech in Illinois Legislature, January [ ? ] . . . 13 5 
Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Spring- 
field, Illinois, January 27th 148 

Protest in the Illinois Legislature on the Subject of 

SI' very, March 3d (Stone and Lincoln) . . .161 

To Miss Mary Owens, May 7th 162 

To John Bennett, August 5th 163 

To Miss Mary Owens, August i6th . . ... 164 

To the People, August 1 9th 166 



X Contents 

PAGE 

Reply to Gen. Adams, October 28th (Lincoln and 

Talbott) 171 

To the Public, October 28th 180 

1838 

To Mrs. O. H. Browning, April ist . . . .189 

1839 

Remarks in the Illinois JyCgislature, January 17th . 194 

To Row, June nth ...... 195 

Speech at a Political Discussion in the Hall of the 
House of Representatives at Springfield, Illinois, 
December [20th ?] ...... 196 

To John T. Stuart, December 23d . . . .228 



1840 

Circular from Whig Committee, January [ist ?] 
Resolution in the Illinois Legislature, November 28th 
Resolution in the Illinois Legislature, December 2d 
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature, December 4th 
Remarks in the Illinois Legislature, December 4th 

1841 



229 

232 
232 

233 
234 



To John T. Stuart, January 23d 235 

Remarks in the Illinois Legislature, January 23d . . 235 
Circular from Whig Committee, February 9th . -236 
Extract from a Protest in the Illinois Legislature 
against the Reorganization of the Judiciary, Feb- 
ruary 26th (Lincoln and others) . . . .242 

To Joshua F. Speed, June 19th 243 

Statement about Harry Wilton, June 25th (Edwards 

and Lincoln) ........ 248 

To Miss Mary Speed, September 27th .... 250 



Contents 



XI 



Call for Whig State Convention, October 20th (Whig 
State Central Committee) ..... 



252 



To Joshua F. Speed, January [3d ?] 

To Joshua F. Speed, February 3d 

To Joshua F. Speed, February 13th 

To G. B. Sheledy, February i6th 

To George E. Pickett, February 2 2d 

Address before the Springfield Washingtonian Tempe: 
ance Society, February 2 2d . 

To Joshua F. Speed, Feburary 25th 

To Joshua F, Speed, February 25th 

To Joshua F. Speed, March 27th . 

To Joshua F. Speed, July 4th 

A Letter from the Lost Townships, August 27th 

Invitation to Henry Clay, August 29th (Executive 
Committee " Clay Club ") .... 

Correspondence about the Lincoln-Shields Duel, Septem 
ber 17th (Lincoln and Shields) 

Memorandum of Instruction to E. H. Merryman, Lin- 
coln's Second, September 19th 

To Joshua F. Speed, October [4th ?] 

1843 

Resolutions at a Whig Meeting at Springfield, Illinois, 

March ist . . . . • 
Circular from Whig Committee, March 4th 
To John Bennett, March 7th 
To Joshua F. Speed, March 24th . 
To Martin M. Morris, March 26th 
To Gen. J. J. Hardin, May nth . 



252 
25s 
257 
259 
260 

261 

275 
276 

278 
281 
283 

291 
293 

295 
297 



299 
301 

315 
316 

316 
319 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

" ! HAVE endured," wrote Lincoln not long before 
^ his death, "a great deal of ridicule without 
much malice, and have received a great deal of 
kindness not quite free from ridicule." On Easter 
Day, 1865, the world knew how little this ridicule, 
how much this kindness, had really signified. There- 
after, Lincoln the man became Lincoln the hero, 
year by year more heroic, until to-day, with the 
swift passing of those who knew him, his figure 
grows ever dimmer, less real. This should not be. 
For Lincoln the man, patient, wise, set in a high 
resolve, is worth far more than Lincoln the hero, 
vaguely glorious. Invaluable is the example of the 
man, intangible that of the hero. 

And, though it is not for us, as for those who in 
awed stillness listened at Gettysburg with inspired 
perception, to know Abraham Lincoln, yet there is 
for us another way whereby we may attain such 
knowledge — through his words — ^uttered in all sin- 
cerity to those who loved or hated him. Cold, 
unsatisfying they may seem, these printed words, 
while we can yet speak with those who knew him, 
and look into eyes that once looked into his. But 
in truth it is here that we find his simple greatness, 
his great simplicity, and though no man tried less 
so to show his power, no man has so shown it more 
clearly. 



xvi Introductory Note 

Thus these writings of Abraham Lincoln are 
associated with those of Washington, Hamilton, 
Franklin, and of the other "Founders of the Re- 
public," not that Lincoln should become still more 
of the past, but, rather, that he with them should 
become still more of the present. However faint 
and mythical may grow the story of that Great 
Struggle, the leader, Lincoln, at least should remain 
a real, living American. No matter how clearly, 
how directly, Lincoln has shown himself in his 
writings, we yet should not forget those men whose 
minds, from their various view-points, have illumined 
for us his character. As this nation owes a great 
debt to Lincoln, so, also, Lincoln's memory owes a 
great debt to a nation which, as no other nation 
could have done, has been able to appreciate his 
full worth. Among the many who have brought 
about this appreciation, those only whose estimates 
have been placed in these volumes may be mentioned 
here. To President Roosevelt, to Mr. Schurz and 
to Mr. Choate, the editor, for himself, for the pub- 
lishers,, and on behalf of the readers, wishes to offer 
his sincere acknowledgments. 

Thanks are also due, for valuable and sympa- 
thetic assistance rendered in the preparation of this 
work, to Mr. Gilbert A. Tracy, of Putnam, Conn., 
Major William H. Lambert, of Philadelphia, and Mr. 
C. F. Gunther, of Chicago, to the Chicago Historical 
Association and personally to its capable Secretary, 
Miss Mcllvaine, to Major Henry S. Burrage, of Port- 
land, Me., and to General Thomas J. Henderson, of 
Illinois. 



Introductory Note xvii 

For various courtesies received, the editor is 
furthermore indebted to the Librarian of the Library 
of Congress; to Messrs. McClure, PhilHps & Co., D. 
Appleton & Co., Macmillan & Co., Dodd, Mead & Co., 
and Harper Brothers, of New York; to Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., Dana, Estes & Co., and L. C. Page & 
Co., of Boston; to A. C. McClurg & Co., of Chicago; 
to The Robert Clarke Co., of Cincinnati, and to the 
J. B. Lippincott Co., of Philadelphia. 

It is hardly necessary to add that every effort has 
been made by the editor to bring into these volumes 
whatever material may there properly belong, 
material much of which is widely scattered in public 
libraries and in private collections. He has been 
fortunate in securing certain interesting correspond- 
ence and papers which had not before come into 
print in book form. Information concerning some 
of these papers had reached him too late to enable 
the papers to find place in their proper chronological 
order in the set. Rather, however, than not to 
present these papers to the readers they have been 
included in the seventh volume of the set, which 
concludes the "Writings." 

A. B. L. 

October, 1905. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN: AN ESSAY 

By carl SCHURZ 



VOL. I.— I. 

I 



Copyright, 1891 

By Carl Schurz 

and 

Houghton, Mifflin <Sk CCo 



This Essay is included in the set with the courteous permission 
of the author and of Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

\ TO American can study the character and career of 
■*■ ^ Abraham Lincoln without being carried away 
by sentimental emotions. We are always inclined to 
idealize that which we love, — a state of mind very 
unfavorable to the exercise of sober critical judgment. 
It is therefore not surprising that most of those who 
have written or spoken on that extraordinary man, 
even while conscientiously endeavoring to draw a 
lifelike portraiture of his being, and to form a just 
estimate of his public conduct, should have drifted 
into more or less indiscriminating eulogy, painting 
his great features in the most glowing colors, and 
covering with tender shadings whatever might look 
like a blemish. 

But his standing before posterity will not be 
exalted by mere praise of his virtues and abilities, 
nor by any concealment of his limitations and faults. 
The stature of the great man, one of whose peculiar 
charms consisted in his being so unlike all other great 
men, will rather lose than gain by the idealization 
which so easily runs into the commonplace. For 
it was distinctly the weird mixture of qualities and 
forces in him, of the lofty with the common, the ideal 
with the uncouth, of that which he had become with 
that which he had not ceased to be, that made him so 
fascinating a character among his fellow-men, gave 
him his singular power over their minds and hearts, 

5 



6 Abraham Lincoln 

and fitted him to be the greatest leader in the 
greatest crisis of our national life. 

His was indeed a marvellous growth. The states- 
man or the military hero born and reared in a log 
cabin is a familiar figure in American history ; but we 
may search in vain among our celebrities for one 
whose origin and early life equalled Abraham Lin- 
coln's in wretchedness. He first saw the light in a 
miserable hovel in Kentucky, on a farm consisting 
of a few barren acres in a dreary neighborhood; his 
father a typical "poor Southern white," shiftless and 
improvident, without ambition for himself or his 
children, constantly looking for a new piece of land 
on which he might make a living without much work ; 
his mother, in her youth handsome and bright, grown 
prematurely coarse in feature and soured in mind by 
daily toil and care; the whole household squalid, 
cheerless, and utterly void of elevating inspirations. 
Only when the family had "moved" into the 
malarious backwoods of Indiana, the mother had 
died, and a stepmother, a woman of thrift and energy, 
had taken charge of the children, the shaggy -headed, 
ragged, barefooted, forlorn boy, then seven years old, 
"began to feel like a human being." Hard work 
was his early lot. When a mere boy he had to help 
in supporting the family, either on his father's clear- 
ing, or hired out to other farmers to plough, or dig 
ditches, or chop wood, or drive ox teams; occa- 
sionally also to "tend the baby," when the farmer's 
wife was otherwise engaged. He could regard it as 
an advancement to a higher sphere of activity when 
he obtained work in a "crossroads store," where he 



Carl Schurz 7 

amused the customers by his talk over the counter; 
for he soon distinguished himself among the back- 
woods folk as one who had something to say worth 
listening to. To win that distinction, he had to 
draw mainly upon his wits ; for, while his thirst for 
knowledge was great, his opportunities for satisfy- 
ing that thirst were wofully slender. 

In the log schoolhouse, which he could visit but 
little, he was taught only reading, writing, and 
elementary arithmetic. Among the people of the 
settlement, bush farmers and small tradesmen, he 
found none of uncommon intelligence or education; 
but some of them had a few books, which he bor- 
rowed eagerly. Thus he read and reread Ms op's 
Fables, learning to tell stories with a point and to 
argue by parables; he read Robinson Crusoe, The 
Pilgrim's Progress, a short history of the United 
States, and Weems's Life of Washington. To the 
town constable's he went to read the Revised 
Statutes of Indiana. Every printed page that fell 
into his hands he would greedily devour, and his 
family and friends watched him with wonder, as the 
uncouth boy, after his daily work, crouched in a 
comer of the log cabin or outside under a tree, ab- 
sorbed in a book while munching his supper of com 
bread. In this manner he began to gather some 
knowledge, and sometimes he would astonish the 
girls with such startling remarks as that the earth 
was moving around the sun, and not the sun around 
the earth, and they marvelled where "Abe" could 
have got such queer notions. Soon he also felt the 
impulse to write; not only making extracts from 



8 Abraham Lincoln 

books he wished to remember, but also composing 
little essays of his own. First he sketched these with 
charcoal on a wooden shovel scraped white with a 
drawing-knife, or on basswood shingles. Then he 
transferred them to paper, which was a scarce com- 
modity in the Lincoln household ; taking care to cut 
his expressions close, so that they might not cover 
too much space, — a style-forming method greatly to 
be commended. Seeing boys put a burning coal on 
the back of a wood turtle, he was moved to write on 
cruelty to animals. Seeing men intoxicated with 
whiskey, he wrote on temperance. In verse-making, 
too, he tried himself, and in satire on persons offen- 
sive to him or others, — satire the rustic wit of which 
was not always fit for ears polite. Also political 
thoughts he put upon paper, and some of his pieces 
were even deemed good enough for publication in 
the county weekly. 

Thus he won a neighborhood reputation as a clever 
young man, which he increased by his performances 
as a speaker, not seldom drawing upon himself the 
dissatisfaction of his employers by mounting a stump 
in the field, and keeping the farm hands from their 
work by little speeches in a jocose and sometimes 
also a serious vein. At the rude social frolics of the 
settlement he became an important person, telling 
funny stories, mimicking the itinerant preachers 
who had happened to pass by, and making his mark 
at wrestling matches, too ; for at the age of seventeen 
he had attained his full height, six feet four inches 
in his stockings, if he had any, and a terribly mus- 
cular clodhopper he was. But he was known never 



Carl Schurz 9 

to use his extraordinary strength to the injury or 
humiHation of others; rather to do them a kindly 
turn, or to enforce justice and fair deaHng between 
them. All this made him a favorite in backwoods 
society, although in some things he appeared a little 
odd to his friends. Far more than any of them, he 
was given not only to reading, but to fits of abstrac- 
tion, to quiet musing with himself, and also to strange 
spells of melancholy, from which he often would pass 
in a moment to rollicking outbursts of droll humor. 
But on the whole he was one of the people among 
whom he lived; in appearance perhaps even a little 
more uncouth than most of them, — a very tall, raw- 
boned youth, with large features, dark, shrivelled 
skin, and rebellious hair; his arms and legs long, out 
of proportion ; clad in deerskin trousers, which from 
frequent exposure to the rain had shrunk so as to sit 
tightly on his limbs, leaving several inches of bluish 
shin exposed between their lower end and the heavy 
tan-colored shoes; the nether garment held usually 
by only one suspender, that was strung over a coarse 
home-made shirt ; the head covered in winter with a 
coonskin cap, in summer with a rough straw hat of 
uncertain shape, without a band. 

It is doubtful whether he felt himself much 
superior to his surroundings, although he confessed 
to a yearning for some knowledge of the world out- 
side of the circle in which he lived. This wish was 
gratified ; but how ? At the age of nineteen he went 
down the Mississippi to New Orleans as a flatboat 
hand, temporarily joining a trade many members of 
which at that time still took pride in being called 



lo Abraham Lincoln 

"half horse and half alligator." After his return he 
worked and lived in the old way until the spring of 
1830, when his father "moved again," this time to 
Illinois; and on the journey of fifteen days "Abe" 
had to drive the ox wagon which carried the house- 
hold goods. Another log cabin was built, and then, 
fencing a field, Abraham Lincoln split those historic 
rails which were destined to play so picturesque a 
part in the Presidential campaign twenty-eight years 
later. 

Having come of age, Lincoln left the family, and 
"struck out for himself." He had to "take jobs 
whenever he could get them." The first of these 
carried him again as a flatboat hand to New Orleans. 
There something happened that made a lasting im- 
pression upon his soul: he witnessed a slave auction. 
"His heart bled," wrote one of his companions; 
" vsaid nothing much ; was silent; looked bad. lean 
say, knowing it, that it was on this trip that he 
formed his opinion on slavery. It rtm its iron in 
him then and there. May, 1831. I have heard him 
say so often." Then he lived several years at New 
Salem, in Illinois, a small mushroom village, with a 
mill, some "stores" and whiskey shops, that rose 
quickly, and soon disappeared again. It was a 
desolate, disjointed, half-working and half-loitering 
life, without any other aim than to gain food and 
shelter from day to day. He served as pilot on a 
steamboat trip, then as clerk in a store and a mill; 
business failing, he was adrift for some time. Being 
compelled to measure his strength with the chief 
bully of the neighborhood, and overcoming him, he 



Carl Schurz ii 

became a noted person in that muscular community, 
and won the esteem and friendship of the ruling gang 
of ruffians to such a degree that, when the Black 
Hawk war broke out, they elected him, a yotmg man 
of twenty- three, captain of a volunteer company, 
composed mainly of roughs of their kind. He took 
the field, and his most noteworthy deed of valor 
consisted, not in killing an Indian, but in protecting 
against his own men, at the peril of his own life, the 
life of an old savage who had strayed into his camp. 

The Black Hawk war over, he turned to politics. 
The step from the captaincy of a volunteer company 
to a candidacy for a seat in the Legislature seemed 
a natural one. But his popularity, although great 
in New Salem, had not spread far enough over the 
district, and he was defeated. Then the wretched 
hand-to-mouth struggle began again. He "set up 
in store-business" with a dissolute partner, who 
drank whiskey while Lincoln was reading books. 
The result was a disastrous failure and a load of debt. 
Thereupon he became a deputy surveyor, and was 
appointed postmaster of New Salem, the business of 
the post-office being so small that he could carry the 
incoming and outgoing mail in his hat. All this could 
not lift him from poverty, and his surveying instru- 
ments and horse and saddle were sold by the sheriff 
for debt. 

But while all this misery was upon him his 
ambition rose to higher aims. He walked many 
miles to borrow from a schoolmaster a grammar with 
which to improve his language. A lawyer lent him 
a copy of Blackstone, and he began to study law. 



12 Abraham Lincoln 

People would look wonderingly at the grotesque 
figure lying in the grass, "with his feet up a tree," 
or sitting on a fence, as, absorbed in a book, he 
learned to construct correct sentences and made him- 
self a jurist. At once he gained a little practice, 
pettifogging before a justice of the peace for friends, 
without expecting a fee. Judicial functions, too, 
were thrust upon him, but only at horse-races or 
wrestling matches, where his acknowledged honesty 
and fairness gave his verdicts undisputed authority. 
His popularity grew apace, and soon he could be a 
candidate for the Legislature again. Although he 
called himself a Whig, an ardent admirer of Henry 
Clay, his clever stump speeches won him the election 
in the strongly Democratic district. Then for the 
first time, perhaps, he thought seriously of his out- 
ward appearance. So far he had been content with 
a garb of "Kentucky jeans," not seldom ragged, 
usually patched, and always shabby. Now, he 
borrowed some money from a friend to buy a new 
suit of clothes — "store clothes" — fit for a Sangamon 
Coimty statesman; and thus adorned he set out for 
the state capital, Vandalia, to take his seat among 
the lawmakers. 

His legislative career, which stretched over several 
sessions — for he was thrice re-elected, in 1836,' 1838, 
and 1840 — was not remarkably brilliant. He did, 
indeed, not lack ambition. He dreamed even of 
making himself "the De Witt Clinton of Illinois," 
and he actually distinguished himself by zealous and 
effective work in those "log-rolling" operations by 
which the young State received "a general system 



Carl Schurz 13 

of internal improvements" in the shape of railroads, 
canals, and banks, — a reckless policy, burdening the 
State with debt, and producing the usual crop of 
political demoralization, but a policy characteristic 
of the time and the impatiently enterprising spirit of 
the Western people. Lincoln, no doubt with the 
best intentions, but with little knowledge of the sub- 
ject, simply followed the popular current. The 
achievement in which, perhaps, he gloried most was 
the removal of the State government from Vandalia 
to Springfield; one of those triumphs of political 
management which are apt to be the pride of the 
small politician's statesmanship. One thing, how- 
ever, he did in which his true nature asserted itself, 
and which gave distinct promise of the future pur- 
suit of high aims. Against an overwhelming pre- 
ponderance of sentiment in the Legislature, followed 
by only one other member, he recorded his protest 
against a proslavery resolution, — that protest de- 
claring "the institution of slavery to be founded on 
both injustice and bad policy." This was not only 
the irrepressible voice of his conscience ; it was true 
moral valor, too; for at that time, in many parts of 
the West, an abolitionist was regarded as Httle better 
than a horse-thief, and even "Abe Lincoln" would 
hardly have been forgiven his antislavery princi- 
ples, had he not been known as such an "uncommon 
good fellow." But here, in obedience to the great 
conviction of his life, he manifested his courage to 
stand alone, — ^that courage which is the first requisite 
of leadership in a great cause. 

Together with his reputation and influence as a 



14 Abraham Lincoln 

politician grew his law practice, especially after he 
had removed from New Salem to Springfield, and 
associated himself with a practitioner of good stand- 
ing. He had now at last won a fixed position in 
society. He became a successful lawyer, less, in- 
deed, by his learning as a jurist than by his effective- 
ness as an advocate and by the striking uprightness 
of his character; and it may truly be said that his 
vivid sense of truth and justice had much to do with 
his effectiveness as an advocate. He would refuse 
to act as the attorney even of personal friends when 
he saw the right on the other side. He would 
abandon cases, even during trial, when the testimony 
convinced him that his client was in the wrong. He 
would dissuade those who sought his service from 
pursuing an obtainable advantage when their claims 
seemed to him unfair. Presenting his very first case 
in the United States Circmt Court, the only question 
being one of authority, he declared that, upon care- 
ful examination, he found all the authorities on the 
other side, and none on his. Persons accused of 
crime, when he thought them guilty, he would not 
defend at all, or, attempting their defence, he was 
unable to put forth his powers. One notable excep- 
tion is on record, when his personal sympathies had 
been strongly aroused. But when he felt himself to 
be the protector of innocence, the defender of justice, 
or the prosecutor of wrong, he frequently disclosed 
such unexpected resources of reasoning, such depth 
of feeling, and rose to such fervor of appeal as to 
astonish and overwhelm his hearers, and make him 
fairly irresistible. Even an ordinary law argument, 



Carl Schurz 15 

coming from him, seldom failed to produce the im- 
pression that he was profoundly convinced of the 
soundness of his position. It is not surprising that 
the mere appearance of so conscientious an attorney 
in any case should have carried, not only to juries, 
but even to judges, almost a presumption of right on 
his side, and that the people began to call him, 
sincerely meaning it, "honest Abe Lincoln." 

In the meantime he had private sorrows and trials 
of a painfully afflicting nature. He had loved and 
been loved by a fair and estimable girl, Ann Rut ledge, 
who died in the flower of her youth and beauty, and 
he mourned her loss with such intensity of grief that 
his friends feared for his reason. Recovering from 
his morbid depression, he bestowed what he thought 
a new affection upon another lady, who refused him. 
And finally, moderately prosperous in his worldly 
affairs, and having prospects of political distinction 
before him, he paid his addresses to Mary Todd, of 
Kentucky, and was accepted. But then tormenting 
doubts of the genuineness of his own affection for her, 
of the compatibility of their characters, and of their 
future happiness came upon him. His distress was 
so great that he felt himself in danger of suicide, and 
feared to carry a pocket-knife with him ; and he gave 
mortal offence to his bride by not appearing on the 
appointed wedding day. Now the torturing con- 
sciousness of the wrong he had done her grew unen- 
durable. He won back her affection, ended the 
agony by marrying her, and became a faithful and 
patient husband and a good father. But it was no 
secret to those who knew the family well that his 



i6 Abraham Lincoln 

domestic life was full of trials. The erratic temper 
of his wife not seldom put the gentleness of his 
nature to the severest tests; and these troubles and 
struggles, which accompanied him through all the 
vicissitudes of his life from the modest home in 
Springfield to the White House at Washington, 
adding untold private heartburnings to his public 
cares, and sometimes precipitating upon him incredi- 
ble embarrassments in the discharge of his public 
duties, form one of the most pathetic features of his 
career. 

He continued to "ride the circuit," read books 
while travelling in his buggy, told funny stories to 
his fellow-lawyers in the tavern, chatted familiarly 
with his neighbors around the stove in the store and 
at the post-office, had his hours of melancholy brood- 
ing as of old, and became more and more widely 
known and trusted and beloved among the people of 
his State for his ability as a lawyer and politician, 
for the uprightness of his character and the ever- 
fiowing spring of sympathetic kindness in his heart. 
His main ambition was confessedly that of political 
distinction; but hardly any one would at that time 
have seen in him the man destined to lead the nation 
through the greatest crisis of the century. 

His time had not yet come when, in 1846, he wa£ 
elected to Congress. In a clever speech in the House 
of Representatives he denounced President Polk for 
having unjustly forced war upon Mexico, and he 
amused the Committee of the Whole by a witty 
attack upon General Cass. More important was the 
expression he gave to his antislavery impulses by 



Carl Schurz 17 

offering a bill looking to the emancipation of the 
slaves in the District of Columbia, and by his re- 
peated votes for the famous Wilmot Proviso, in- 
tended to exclude slavery from the Territories 
acquired from Mexico. But when, at the expiration 
of his term, in March, 1849, he left his seat, he 
gloomily despaired of ever seeing the day when the 
cause nearest to his heart would be rightly grasped 
by the people, and when he would be able to render 
any service to his country in solving the great 
problem. Nor had his career as a member of Con- 
gress in any sense been such as to gratify his ambi- 
tion. Indeed, if he ever had any belief in a great 
destiny for himself, it must have been weak at that 
period; for he actually sought to obtain from the 
new Whig President, General Taylor, the place of 
Commissioner of the General Land Office, willing to 
bury himself in one of the administrative bureaus of 
the government. Fortunately for the coimtry, he 
failed; and no less fortunately, when, later, the ter- 
ritorial governorship of Oregon was offered to him, 
Mrs. Lincoln's protest induced him to decline it. 
Returning to Springfield, he gave himself with re- 
newed zest to his law practice, acquiesced in the 
Compromise of 1850 with reluctance and a mental re- 
servation, supported in the Presidential campaign of 
1852 the Whig candidate in some spiritless speeches, 
and took but a languid interest in the politics of the 
day. But just then his time was drawing near. 

The peace promised, and apparently inaugurated, 
by the Compromise of 1850 was rudely broken by the 
introduction of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854. 

VOt V— 3. 



1 8 Abraham Lincoln 

The repeal of the Missouri Compromise, opening the 
Territories of the United States, the heritage of 
coming generations, to the invasion of slavery, sud- 
denly revealed the whole significance of the slavery 
question to the people of the free States, and thrust 
itself into the politics of the country as the par- 
amount issue. Something like an electric shock 
flashed through the North. Men who but a short 
time before had been absorbed by their business pur- 
suits, and deprecated all political agitation, were 
startled out of their security by a sudden alarm, 
and excitedly took sides. That restless trouble of 
conscience about slavery, which even in times of 
apparent repose had secretly disturbed the souls 
of Northern people, broke forth in an utterance 
louder than ever. The bonds of accustomed party 
allegiance gave way. Antislavery Democrats and 
antislavery Whigs felt themselves drawn together 
by a common overpowering sentiment, and soon they 
began to rally in a new organization. The Republi- 
can party sprang into being to meet the overruling 
call of the hour. Then Abraham Lincoln's time was 
come. He rapidly advanced to a position of conspicu- 
ous championship in the struggle. This, however, 
was not owing to his virtues and abilities alone. 
Indeed, the slavery question stirred his soul in its 
profoundest depths; it was, as one of his intimate 
friends said, "the only one on which he would become 
excited"; it called forth all his faculties and ener- 
gies. Yet there were many others who, having long 
and arduously fought the antislavery battle in the 
popular assembly, or in the press, or in the halls of 



Carl Schurz 19 

Congress, far surpassed him in prestige, and com- 
pared with whom he was still an obscure and untried 
nian. His reputation, although highly honorable 
and well earned, had so far been essentially local. 
As a stump-speaker in Whig canvasses outside of his 
State he had attracted comparatively little attention ; 
but in Illinois he had been recognized as one of the 
foremost men of the Whig party. Among the 
opponents of the Nebraska Bill he occupied in his 
State so important a position, that in 1854 he was 
the choice of a large majority of the "Anti-Nebraska 
men " in the I^egislature for a seat in the Senate of the 
United States which then became vacant ; and when 
he, an old Whig, could not obtain the votes of the 
Anti-Nebraska Democrats necessary to make a ma- 
jority, he generously urged his friends to transfer 
their votes to Lyman Trumbull, who was then 
elected. Two years later, in the first national con- 
vention of the Republican party, the delegation from 
Illinois brought him forward as a candidate for the 
vice-presidency, and he received respectable sup- 
port. Still, the name of Abraham Lincoln was not 
widely known beyond the boundaries of his own 
State. But now it was this local prominence in 
Illinois that put him in a position of peculiar advan- 
tage on the battlefield of national politics. In the 
assault on the Missouri Compromise which broke 
down all legal barriers to the spread of slavery 
Stephen Arnold Douglas was the ostensible leader 
and central figure ; and Douglas was a Senator from 
Illinois, Lincoln's State. Douglas's national theatre 
of action was the Senate, but in his constituency 



20 Abraham Lincoln 

in Illinois were the roots of his official position and 
power. What he did in the Senate he had to justify 
before the people of Illinois, in order to maintain 
himself in place; and in Illinois all eyes turned to 
Lincoln as Douglas's natural antagonist. 

As very young men they had come to Illinois, 
Lincoln from Indiana, Douglas from Vermont, and 
had grown up together in public life, Douglas as a 
Democrat, Lincoln as a Whig. They had met first 
in Vandalia, in 1834, when Lincoln was in the 
Legislature and Douglas in the lobby; and again in 
1836, both as members of the Legislature. Douglas, 
a very able politician, of the agile, combative, 
audacious, "pushing" sort, rose in political dis- 
tinction with remarkable rapidity. In quick suc- 
cession he became a member of the Legislature, a 
State's attorney, secretary of state, a judge on the 
supreme bench of Illinois, three times a Representa- 
tive in Congress, and a Senator of the United States 
when only thirty-nine years old. In the National 
Democratic convention of 1852 he appeared even 
as an aspirant to the nomination for the Presidency, 
as the favorite of "young America," and received a 
respectable vote. He had far outstripped Lincoln 
in what is commonly called political success and in 
reputation. But it had frequently happened that 
in political campaigns Lincoln felt himself impelled, 
or was selected by his Whig friends, to answer 
Douglas's speeches; and thus the two were looked 
upon, in a large part of the State at least, as the 
representative combatants of their respective parties 
in the debates before popular meetings. As soon. 



Carl Schurz 21 

therefore, as, after the passage of his Kansas-Ne- 
braska Bill, Douglas returned to Illinois to defend 
his cause before his constituents, Lincoln, obeying 
not only his own impulse, but also general expecta- 
tion, stepped forward as his principal opponent. 
Thus the struggle about the principles involved in 
the Kansas-Nebraska Bill, or, in a broader sense, 
the struggle between freedom and slavery, assumed 
in Illinois the outward form of a personal contest 
between Lincoln and Douglas; and, as it continued 
and became more animated, that personal contest 
in Illinois was watched with constantly increasing 
interest by the whole country. When, in 1858, 
Douglas's senatorial term being about to expire, 
Lincoln was formally designated by the Republican 
convention of Illinois as their candidate for the 
Senate, to take Douglas's place, and the two con- 
testants agreed to debate the questions at issue face 
to face in a series of public meetings, the eyes of the 
whole American people were turned eagerly to that 
one point: and the spectacle reminded one of those 
lays of ancient times telling of two armies, in bat- 
tle array, standing still to see their two principal 
champions fight out the contested cause between 
the lines in single combat. 

Lincoln had then reached the full maturity of his 
powers. His equipment as a statesman did not 
embrace a comprehensive knowledge of public affairs. 
What he had studied he had indeed made his own, 
with the eager craving and that zealous tenacity 
characteristic of superior minds learning under 
difficulties. But his narrow opportunities and the 



22 Abraham Lincoln 

unsteady life he had led during his younger years 
had not permitted the accumulation of large stores 
in his mind. It is true, in political campaigns he had 
occasionally spoken on the ostensible issues between 
the Whigs and the Democrats, the tariff, internal 
improvements, banks, and so on, but only in a per- 
functory manner. Had he ever given much serious 
thought and study to these subjects, it is safe to 
assume that a mind so prolific of original conceits as 
his would certainly have produced some utterance 
upon them worth remembering. His soul had evi- 
dently never been deeply stirred by such topics. 
But when his moral nature was aroused, his brain 
developed an untiring activity until it had mastered 
all the knowledge within reach. As soon as the 
repeal of the Missouri Compromise had thrust the 
slavery question into politics as the paramount 
issue, Lincoln plunged into an arduous study of all 
its legal, historical, and moral aspects, and then his 
mind became a complete arsenal of argument. His 
rich natural gifts, trained by long and varied 
practice, had made him an orator of rare persuasive- 
ness. In his immature days, he had pleased himself 
for a short period with that inflated, high-flown 
style which, among the uncultivated, passes for 
"beautiful speaking." His inborn truthfulness and 
his artistic instinct soon overcame that aberration 
and revealed to him the noble beauty and strength 
of simplicity. He possessed an uncommon power of 
clear and compact statement, which might have re- 
minded those who knew the story of his early youth 
of the efforts of the poor boy, when he copied his 



Carl Schurz 23 

compositions from the scraped wooden shovel, care- 
fully to trim his expressions in order to save paper. 
His language had the energy of honest directness 
and he was a master of logical lucidity. He loved 
to point and enliven his reasoning by humorous 
illustrations, usually anecdotes of Western life, of 
which he had an inexhaustible store at his command. 
These anecdotes had not seldom a flavor of rustic 
robustness about them, but he used them with great 
effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to 
an abstraction, to explode an absurdity, to clinch 
an argument, to drive home an admonition. The 
natural kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice 
and disarming partisan rancor, would often open to 
his reasoning a way into minds most unwilling to 
receive it. 

Yet his greatest power consisted in the charm 
of his individuality. That charm did not, in the 
ordinary way, appeal to the ear or to the eye. His 
voice was not melodious; rather shrill and piercing, 
especially when it rose to its high treble in moments 
of great animation. His figure was unhandsome, 
and the action of his unwieldy limbs awkward. He 
commanded none of the outward graces of oratory 
as they are commonly understood. His charm was 
of a different kind. It flowed from the rare depth 
and genuineness of his convictions and his sym- 
pathetic feelings. Sympathy was the strongest 
element in his nature. One of his biographers, who 
knew him before he became President, says: "Lin- 
coln's compassion might be stirred deeply by an 
object present, but never by an object absent and 



24 Abraham Lincoln 

unseen. In the former case he would most likely 
extend relief, with little inquiry into the merits of 
the case, because, as he expressed it himself, it * took 
a pain out of his own heart.'" Only half of this 
is correct. It is certainly true that he could not 
witness any individual distress or oppression, or any 
kind of suffering, without feeling a pang of pain him- 
self, and that by relieving as much as he could the 
suffering of others he put an end to his own. This 
compassionate impulse to help he felt not only for 
human beings, but for every living creature. As in 
his boyhood he angrily reproved the boys who 
tormented a wood turtle by putting a burning coal 
on its back, so, we are told, he would, when a mature 
man, on a journey, dismount from his buggy and 
wade waist-deep in mire to rescue a pig struggling in 
a swamp. Indeed, appeals to his compassion were so 
irresistible to him, and he felt it so difficult to refuse 
anything when his refusal could give pain, that he 
himself sometimes spoke of his inability to say " no " 
as a positive weakness. But that certainly does not 
prove that his compassionate feeling was confined to 
individual cases of suffering witnessed with his own 
eyes. As the boy was moved by the aspect of the 
tortured wood turtle to compose an essay against 
cruelty to animals in general, so the aspect of other 
cases of suffering and wrong wrought up his moral 
nature, and set his mind to work against cruelty, 
injustice, and oppression in general. 

As his sympathy went forth to others, it attracted 
others to him. Especially those whom he called the 
"plain people" felt themselves drawn to him by the 



Carl Schurz 25 

instinctive feeling that he understood, esteemed, 
and appreciated them. He had grown up among 
the poor, the lowly, the ignorant. He never ceased 
to remember the good souls he had met among them, 
and the many kindnesses they had done him. Al- 
though in his mental development he had risen far 
above them, he never looked down upon them. How 
they felt and how they reasoned he knew, for so he 
had once felt and reasoned himself. How they could 
be moved he knew, for so he had once been moved 
himself and practised moving others. His mind 
was much larger than theirs, but it thoroughly com- 
prehended theirs; and while he thought much 
farther than they, their thoughts were ever present 
to him. Nor had the visible distance between them 
grown as wide as his rise in the world would seem to 
have warranted. Much of his backwoods speech 
and manners still clung to him. Although he had 
become "Mr. Lincoln" to his later acquaintances, 
he was still "Abe" to the "Nats" and "Billys" and 
"Daves" of his youth; and their familiarity neither 
appeared unnatural to them, nor was it in the least 
awkward to him. He still told and enjoyed stories 
similar to those he had told and enjoyed in the 
Indiana settlement and at New Salem. His wants 
remained as modest as they had ever been; his do- 
mestic habits had by no means completely accom- 
modated themselves to those of his more highborn 
wife ; and though the ' ' Kentucky jeans ' ' apparel had 
long been dropped, his clothes of better material and 
better make would sit ill sorted on his gigantic limbs. 
His cotton umbrella, without a handle, and tied 



26 Abraham Lincoln 

together with a coarse string to keep it from flapping, 
which he carried on his circuit rides, is said to be 
remembered still by some of his surviving neighbors. 
This rusticity of habit was utterly free from that 
affected contempt of refinement and comfort which 
self-made men sometimes carry into their more 
affluent circumstances. To Abraham Lincoln it was 
entirely natural, and all those who came into con- 
tact with him knew it to be so. In his ways of 
thinking and feeling he had become a gentleman in 
the highest sense, but the refining process had 
polished but little the outward form. The plain 
people, therefore, still considered "honest Abe 
Lincoln" one of themselves; and when they felt, 
which they no doubt frequently did, that his thoughts 
and aspirations moved in a sphere above their own, 
they were all the more proud of him, without any 
diminution of fellow-feeling. It was this relation of 
mutual sympathy and understanding between Lin- 
coln and the plain people that gave him his peculiar 
power as a public man, and singularly fitted him, as 
we shall see, for that leadership which was pre- 
eminently required in the great crisis then coming 
on, — the leadership which indeed thinks and moves 
ahead of the masses, but always remains within sight 
and sympathetic touch of them. 

He entered upon the campaign of 1858 better 
equipped than he had ever been before. He not 
only instinctively felt, but he had convinced himself 
by arduous study, that in this struggle against the 
spread of slavery he had right, justice, philosophy, 
the enlightened opinion of mankind, history, the 



Carl Schurz 27 

Constitution, and good policy on his side. It was 
observed that after he began to discuss the slavery 
question his speeches were pitched in a much loftier 
key than his former oratorical efforts. While he 
remained fond of telling funny stories in private con- 
versation, they disappeared more and more from his 
public discourse. He would still now and then point 
his argument with expressions of inimitable quaint- 
ness, and flash out rays of kindly humor and witty 
irony; but his general tone was serious, and rose 
sometimes to genuine solemnity. His masterly 
skill in dialectical thrust and parry, his wealth of 
knowledge, his power of reasoning and elevation of 
sentiment, disclosed in language of rare precision, 
strength, and beauty, not seldom astonished his old 
friends. 

Neither of the two champions could have found a 
more formidable antagonist than each now met in 
the other. Douglas was by far the most conspicu- 
ous member of his party. His admirers had dubbed 
him "the Little Giant," contrasting in that nick- 
name the greatness of his mind with the smallness 
of his body. But though of low stature, his broad- 
shouldered figure appeared uncommonly sturdy, and 
there was, something lionlike in the squareness of his 
brow and jaw, and in the defiant shake of his long 
hair. His loud and persistent advocacy of territorial 
expansion, in the name of patriotism and "manifest 
destiny," had given him an enthusiastic following 
among the young and ardent. Great natural parts, 
a highly combative temperament, and long training 
had made him a debater unsurpassed in a Senate 



28 Abraham Lincoln 

filled with able men. He could be as forceful in his 
appeals to patriotic feelings as he was fierce in de- 
nunciation and thoroughly skilled in all the baser 
tricks of parliamentary pugilism. While genial and 
rollicking in his social intercourse — the idol of the 
"boys" — ^he felt himself one of the most renowned 
statesmen of his time, and would frequently meet 
his opponents with an overbearing haughtiness, as 
persons more to be pitied than to be feared. In his 
speech opening the campaign of 1858, he spoke of 
Lincoln, whom the Republicans had dared to ad- 
vance as their candidate for ' ' his ' ' place in the Senate, 
with an air of patronizing if not contemptuous con- 
descension, as "a kind, amiable, and intelligent 
gentleman and a good citizen." The Little Giant 
would have been pleased to pass off his antagonist as 
a tall dwarf. He knew Lincoln too well, however, 
to indulge himself seriously in such a delusion. But 
the political situation was at that moment in a 
curious tangle, and Douglas could expect to de- 
rive from the confusion great advantage over his 
opponent. 

By the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, open- 
ing the Territories to the ingress of slavery, Douglas 
had pleased the South, but greatly alarmed the 
North. He had sought to conciliate Northern senti- 
ment by appending to his Kansas-Nebraska Bill 
the declaration that its intent was "not to legislate 
slavery into any State or Territory, nor to exclude it 
therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly 
free to form and regulate their institutions in their 
own way, subject only to the Constitution of the 



Carl Schurz 29 

United States." This he called "the great principle 
of popular sovereignty." When asked whether, 
under this act, the people of a Territory, before its 
admission as a State, would have the right to ex- 
clude slavery, he answered, "That is a question for 
the courts to decide. ' ' Then came the famous ' ' Dred 
Scott decision," in which the Supreme Court held 
substantially that the right to hold slaves as prop- 
erty existed in the Territories by virtue of the Federal 
Constitution, and that this right could not be denied 
by any act of a territorial government. This, of 
course, denied the right of the people of any Terri- 
tory to exclude slavery while they were in a territorial 
condition, and it alarmed the Northern people still 
more. Douglas recognized the binding force of the 
decision of the Supreme Court, at the same time 
maintaining, most illogically, that his great principle 
of popular sovereignty remained in force neverthe- 
less. Meanwhile, the proslavery people of western 
Missouri, the so-called "border ruffians," had invaded 
Kansas, set up a constitutional convention, made a 
constitution of an extreme proslavery type, the "Le- 
compton Constitution," refused to submit it fairly to 
a vote of the people of Kansas, and then referred it 
to Congress for acceptance, — seeking thus to accom- 
plish the admission of Kansas as a slave State. Had 
Douglas supported such a scheme, he would have 
lost all foothood in the North. In the name of 
popular sovereignty he loudly declared his opposi- 
tion to the acceptance of any constitution not 
sanctioned by a formal popular vote. He "did not 
care," he said, "whether slavery be voted up or 



30 Abraham Lincoln 

down," but there must be a fair vote of the people. 
Thus he drew upon himself the hostility of the 
Buchanan administration, which was controlled by 
the proslavery interest, but he saved his Northern 
following. More than this, not only did his Demo- 
cratic admirers now call him "the true champion of 
freedom," but even some Republicans of large in- 
fluence, prominent among them Horace Greeley, 
sympathizing with Douglas in his fight against the 
Lecompton Constitution, and hoping to detach him 
permanently from the proslavery interest and to 
force a lasting breach in the Democratic party, 
seriously advised the Republicans of Illinois to give 
up their opposition to Douglas, and to help re-elect 
him to the Senate. Lincoln was not of that opinion. 
He believed that great popular movements can 
succeed only when guided by their faithful friends, 
and that the antislavery cause could not safely be 
entrusted to the keeping of one who "did not care 
whether slavery be voted up or down." This opin- 
ion prevailed in Illinois; but the influences within 
the Republican party over which it prevailed 
yielded only a reluctant acquiescence, if they ac- 
quiesced at all, after having materially strengthened 
Douglas's position. Such was the situation of things 
when the campaign of 1858 between Lincoln and 
Douglas began. 

Lincoln opened the campaign on his side at the 
convention which nominated him as the Republican 
candidate for the senatorship, with a memorable 
saying which sounded like a shout from the watch- 
tower of history: "A house divided against itself 



Carl Schurz 31 

cannot stand. I believe this government cannot 
endure permanently half slave and half free. I do 
not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not 
expect the house to fall, but I expect it will cease to 
be divided. It will become all one thing or all the 
other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest 
the further spread of it, and place it where the public 
mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of 
ultimate extinction, or its advocates .will push it 
forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, — old as well as new, North as well as South." 
Then he proceeded to point out that the Nebraska 
doctrine combined with the Dred Scott decision 
worked in the direction of making the nation "all 
slave. ' ' Here was the ' ' irrepressible conflict ' ' spoken 
of by Seward a short time later, in a speech made 
famous mainly by that phrase. If there was any 
new discovery in it, the right of priority was Lincoln's. 
This utterance proved not only his statesmanlike 
conception of the issue, but also, in his situation as a 
candidate, the firmness of his moral courage. The 
friends to whom he had read the draught of this 
speech before he delivered it warned him anxiously 
that its delivery might be fatal to his success in the 
election. This was shrewd advice, in the ordinary 
sense. While a slaveholder could threaten disunion 
with impunity, the mere suggestion that the exist- 
ence of slavery was incompatible with freedom in the 
Union would hazard the political chances of any 
public man in the North. But Lincoln was in- 
flexible. "It is true," said he, "and I will deliver 
it as written. ... I would rather be defeated 



32 Abraham Lincoln 

with these expressions in my speech held up and dis- 
cussed before the people than be victorious without 
them." The statesman was right in his far-seeing 
judgment and his conscientious statement of the 
truth, but the practical politicians were also right in 
their prediction of the immediate effect. Douglas 
instantly seized upon the declaration that a house 
divided against itself cannot stand as the main 
objective point of his attack, interpreting it as an 
incitement to a "relentless sectional war," and there 
is no doubt that the persistent reiteration of this 
charge served to frighten not a few timid souls. 

Lincoln constantly endeavored to bring the moral 
and philosophical side of the subject to the fore- 
ground. "Slavery is wrong" was the keynote of all 
his speeches. To Douglas's glittering sophism that 
the right of the people of a Territory to have slavery 
or not, as they might desire, was in accordance with 
the principle of true popular sovereignty, he made 
the pointed answer : ' ' Then true popular sovereignty, 
according to Senator Douglas, means that, when one 
man makes another man his slave, no third man shall 
be allowed to object." To Douglas's argument that 
the principle which demanded that the people of a 
Territory should be permitted to choose whether 
they would have slavery or not "originated when 
God made man, and placed good and evil before 
him, allowing him to choose upon his own responsi- 
bility," Lincoln solemnly replied: "No; God did 
not place good and evil before man, telling him to 
make his choice. On the contrary, God did tell him 
there was one tree of the fruit of which he should not 



Carl Schurz 33 

eat, upon pain of death." He did not, however, 
place himself on the most advanced ground taken 
by the radical antislavery men. He admitted that, 
under the Constitution, *"'the Southern people were 
entitled to a Congressional fugitive slave law," 
although he did not approve the fugitive slave law 
then existing. He declared also that, if slavery were 
kept out of the Territories during their territorial 
existence, as it should be, and if then the people of 
any Territory, having a fair chance and a clear field, 
should do such an extraordinary thing as to adopt a 
slave constitution, uninfluenced by the actual pres- 
ence of the institution among them, he saw no alter- 
native but to admit such a Territory into the Union. 
He declared further that, while he should be exceed- 
ingly glad to see slavery abolished in the District of 
Columbia, he would, as a member of Congress, with 
his present views, not endeavor to bring on that 
abolition except on condition that emancipation be 
gradual, that it be approved by the decision of a 
majority of voters in the District, and that com- 
pensation be made to unwilling owners. On every 
available occasion, he pronounced himself in favor of 
the deportation and colonization of the blacks, of 
course with their consent. He repeatedly disavowed 
any wish on his part to have social and political 
equality established between whites and blacks. On 
this point he summed up his views in a reply to 
Douglas's assertion that the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, in speaking of all men as being created equal, 
did not include the negroes, saying : " I do not under- 
stand the Declaration of Independence to mean that 



34 Abraham Lincoln 

all men were created equal in all respects. They 
are not equal in color. But I believe that it does 
mean to declare that all men are equal in some 
respects ; they are equal in their right to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness." 

With regard to some of these subjects Lincoln 
modified his position at a later period, and it has 
been suggested that he would have professed more 
advanced principles in his debates with Douglas, 
had he not feared thereby to lose votes. This view 
can hardly be sustained, Lincoln had the courage 
of his opinions, but he was not a radical. The man 
who risked his election by delivering, against the 
urgent protest of his friends, the speech about "the 
house divided against itself" would not have shrunk 
from the expression of more extreme views, had he 
really entertained them. It is only fair to assume 
that he said what at the time he really thought, and 
that if, subsequently, his opinions changed, it was 
owing to new conceptions of good policy and of duty 
brought forth by an entirely new set of circum- 
stances and exigencies. It is characteristic that he 
continued to adhere to the impracticable coloniza- 
tion plan even after the Emancipation Proclamation 
had already been issued. 

But in this contest Lincoln proved himself not 
only a debater, but also a political strategist of the 
first order. The "kind, amiable, and intelligent 
gentleman," as Douglas had been pleased to call him, 
was by no means as harmless as a dove. He pos- 
sessed an uncommon share of that worldly shrewd- 
ness which not seldom goes with genuine simplicity 



Carl Schurz 35 

of character; and the pohtical experience gathered 
in the Legislature and in Congress, and in many 
election campaigns, added to his keen intuitions, 
had made him as far-sighted a judge of the probable 
effects of a public man's sayings or doings upon the 
popular mind, and as accurate a calculator in esti- 
mating political chances and forecasting results, as 
could be found among the party managers in Illinois. 
And now he perceived keenly the ugly dilemma in 
which Douglas found himself, between the Dred 
Scott decision, which declared the right to hold slaves 
to exist in the Territories by virtue of the Federal 
Constitution, and his "great principle of popular 
sovereignty," according to which the people of a 
Territory, if they saw fit, were to have the right to 
exclude slavery therefrom. Douglas was twisting 
and squirming to the best of his ability to avoid the 
admission that the two were incompatible. The 
question then presented itself if it would be good 
policy for Lincoln to force Douglas to a clear expres- 
sion of his opinion as to whether, the Dred Scott 
decision notwithstanding, "the people of a Terri- 
tory could in any lawful way exclude slavery from 
its limits prior to the formation of a State constitu- 
tion." Lincoln foresaw and predicted what Douglas 
would answer: that slavery could not exist in a 
Territory unless the people desired it and gave it pro- 
tection by territorial legislation. In an improvised 
caucus the policy of pressing the interrogatory on 
Douglas was discussed. Lincoln's friends unani- 
mously advised against it, because the answer fore- 
seen would sufficiently commend Douglas to the 



36 Abraham Lincoln 

people of Illinois to insure his re-election to the Senate. 
But Lincoln persisted. "I am after larger game," 
said he. "If Douglas so answers, he can never be 
President, and the battle of i860 is worth a hundred 
of this." The interrogatory was pressed upon Doug- 
las, and Douglas did answer that, no matter what 
the decision of the Supreme Court might be on the 
abstract question, the people of a Territory had the 
lawful means to introduce or exclude slavery by 
territorial legislation friendly or unfriendly to the 
institution. Lincoln found it easy to show the 
absurdity of the proposition that, if slavery were 
admitted to exist of right in the Territories by virtue 
of the supreme law, the Federal Constitution, it 
could be kept out or expelled by an inferior law, 
one made by a territorial Legislature. Again the 
judgment of the politicians, having only the nearest 
object in view, proved correct: Douglas was re- 
elected to the Senate. But Lincoln's judgment 
proved correct also: Douglas, by resorting to the 
expedient of his "unfriendly legislation doctrine," 
forfeited his last chance of becoming President of the 
United States. He might have hoped to win, by 
sufficient atonement, his pardon from the South for 
his opposition to the Lecompton Constitution; but 
that he taught the people of the Territories a trick 
by which they could defeat what the proslavery 
men considered a constitutional right, and that he 
called that trick lawful, — this the slave power would 
never forgive. The breach between the Southern 
and the Northern Democracy was thenceforth ir- 
remediable and fatal. 



Carl Schurz Z7 

The Presidential election of i860 approached. 
The struggle in Kansas, and the debates in Congress 
which accompanied it, and which not unfrequently 
provoked violent outbursts, continually stirred the 
popular excitement. Within the Democratic party 
raged the war of factions. The national Demo- 
cratic convention met at Charleston on the 23d 
of April, i860. After a struggle of ten days be- 
tween the adherents and the opponents of Douglas, 
during which the delegates from the cotton States 
had withdrawn, the convention adjourned without 
having nominated any candidates, to meet again 
in Baltimore on the i8th of June. There was no 
prospect, however, of reconciling the hostile ele- 
ments. It appeared very probable that the Balti- 
more convention would nominate Douglas, while 
the seceding Southern Democrats would set up a 
candidate of their own, representing extreme pro- 
slavery principles. 

Meanwhile, the national Republican convention 
assembled at Chicago on the i6th of May, full of 
enthusiasm and hope. The situation was easily 
understood. The Democrats would have the South. 
In order to succeed in the election, the Republicans 
had to win, in addition to the States carried by 
Fremont in 1856, those that were classed as "doubt- 
ful," — New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Indiana, or 
Illinois in the place of either New Jersey or Indiana. 
The most eminent Republican statesmen and leaders 
of the time thought of for the Presidency were 
Seward and Chase, both regarded as belonging to the 
more advanced order of antislavery men. Of the 



38 Abraham Lincoln 

two, Seward had the largest following, mainly from 
New York, New England, and the Northwest. 
Cautious politicians doubted seriously whether Sew- 
ard, to whom some phrases in his speeches had 
undeservedly given the reputation of a reckless 
radical, would be able to command the whole Re- 
publican vote in the doubtful States. Besides, 
during his long public career he had made enemies. 
It was evident that those who thought Seward's 
nomination too hazardous an experiment would 
consider Chase unavailable for the same reason. 
They would then look round for an "available" 
man; and among the "available" men Abraham 
Lincoln was easily discovered to stand foremost. 
His great debate with Douglas had given him a 
national reputation. The people of the East being 
eager to see the hero of so dramatic a contest, he had 
been induced to visit several Eastern cities, and had 
astonished and delighted large and distinguished 
audiences with speeches of singular power and 
originality. An address delivered by him in the 
Cooper Institute in New York, before an audience 
containing a large number of important persons, 
was then, and has ever since been, especially praised 
as one of the most logical and convincing political 
speeches ever made in this country. The people of 
the West had grown proud of him as a distinctively 
Western great man, and his popularity at home had 
some peculiar features which could be expected to 
exercise a potent charm. Nor was Lincoln's name 
as that of an available candidate left to the chance 
of accidental discovery. It is indeed not probable 



Carl Schurz 39 

that he thought of himself as a Presidential possi- 
bility, during his contest with Douglas for the 
senatorship. As late as April, 1859, he had written 
to a friend who had approached him on the subject 
that he did not think himself fit for the Presidency. 
The Vice-Presidency was then the limit of his ambi- 
tion. But some of his friends in Illinois took the 
matter seriously in hand, and Lincoln, after some 
hesitation, then formally authorized "the use of his 
name." The matter was managed with such energy 
and excellent judgment that, in the convention, he 
had not only the whole vote of Illinois to start with, 
but won votes on all sides without offending any 
rival. A large majority of the opponents of Seward 
went over to Abraham Lincoln, and gave him the 
nomination on the third ballot. As had been fore- 
seen, Douglas was nominated by one wing of the 
Democratic party at Baltimore, while the extreme 
proslavery wing put Breckinridge into the field as 
its candidate. After a campaign conducted with 
the energy of genuine enthusiasm on the antislavery 
side the united Republicans defeated the divided 
Democrats, and Lincoln was elected President by a 
majority of fifty-seven votes in the electoral colleges. 
The result of the election had hardly been declared 
when the disunion movement in the South, long 
threatened and carefully planned and prepared, 
broke out in the shape of open revolt, and nearly a 
month before Lincoln could be inaugurated as 
President of the United States seven Southern 
States had adopted ordinances of secession, formed 
an independent confederacy, framed a constitution 



40 Abraham Lincoln 

for it, and elected Jefferson Davis its president, 
expecting the other slaveholding States soon to join 
them. On the nth of February, 1861, Lincoln left 
Springfield for Washington ; having, with character- 
istic simplicity, asked his law partner not to change 
the sign of the firm "Lincoln and Hemdon" during 
the four years' unavoidable absence of the senior 
partner, and having taken an affectionate and 
touching leave of his neighbors. 

The situation which confronted the new President 
was appalling: the larger part of the South in open 
rebellion, the rest of the slaveholding States wavering 
preparing to follow; the revolt guided by deter- 
mined, daring, and skilful leaders; the Southern 
people, apparently full of enthusiasm and military 
spirit, rushing to arms, some of the forts and arsenals 
already in their possession; the government of the 
Union, before the accession of the new President, 
in the hands of men some of whom actively sym- 
pathized with the revolt, while others were hampered 
by their traditional doctrines in dealing with it, and 
really gave it aid and comfort by their irresolute 
attitude; all the departments full of "Southern 
sympathizers" and honey-combed with disloyalty; 
the treasury empty, and the public credit at the 
lowest ebb; the arsenals ill supplied with arms, if 
not emptied by treacherous practices; the regular 
army of insignificant strength, dispersed over an 
immense surface, and deprived of some of its best 
officers by defection ; the navy small and antiquated. 
But that was not all. The threat of disunion had so 
often been resorted to by the slave power in years 



Carl Schurz 41 

gone by that most Northern people had ceased to 
beheve in its seriousness. But, when disunion 
actually appeared as a stem reality, something like 
a chill swept through the whole Northern country. 
A cry for union and peace at any price rose on all 
sides. Democratic partisanship reiterated this cry 
with vociferous vehemence, and even many Republi- 
cans grew afraid of the victory they had just achieved 
at the ballot-box, and spoke of compromise. The 
country fairly resounded with the noise of "anti- 
coercion meetings." Expressions of firm resolution 
from determined antislavery men were indeed not 
wanting, but they were for a while almost drowned 
by a bewildering confusion of discordant voices. 
Even this was not all. Potent influences in Europe, 
with an ill-concealed desire for the permanent dis- 
ruption of the American Union, eagerly espoused 
the cause of the Southern seceders, and the two 
principal maritime powers of the Old World seemed 
only to be waiting for a favorable opportunity to 
lend them a helping hand. 

This was the state of things to be mastered by 
* ' honest Abe Lincoln ' ' when he took his seat in the 
Presidential chair, — "honest Abe Lincoln," who was 
so good-natured that he could not say "no"; the 
greatest achievement in whose life had been a debate 
on the slavery question ; who had never been in any 
position of power; who was without the slightest 
experience of high executive duties, and who had 
only a speaking acquaintance with the men upon 
whose counsel and co-operation he was to de- 
pend. Nor was his accession to power under such 



42 Abraham Lincoln 

circumstances greeted with general confidence even 
by the members of his party. While he had indeed 
won much popularity, many Republicans, especially 
among those who had advocated Seward's nomina- 
tion for the Presidency, saw the simple "Illinois 
lawyer ' ' take the reins of government with a feeling 
little short of dismay. The orators and journals 
of the opposition were ridiculing and lampooning 
him without measure. Many people actually won- 
dered how such a man could dare to undertake a 
task which, as he himself had said to his neighbors 
in his parting speech, was "more difficult than that of 
Washington himself had been." 

But Lincoln brought to that task, aside from 
other uncommon qualities, the first requisite, — an 
intuitive comprehension of its nature. While he 
did not indulge in the delusion that the Union could 
be maintained or restored without a conflict of arms, 
he could indeed not foresee all the problems he would 
have to solve. He instinctively understood, how- 
ever, by what means that conflict would have to be 
conducted by the government of a democracy. He 
knew that the impending war, whether great or 
small, would not be like a foreign war, exciting a 
united national enthusiasm, but a civil war, likely 
to fan to uncommon heat the animosities of party 
even in the localities controlled by the government; 
that this war would have to be carried on not by 
means of a ready-made machinery, ruled by an un- 
disputed, absolute will, but by means to be furnished 
by the voluntary action of the people: — armies to 
be formed by voluntary enlistments ; large sums of 



Carl Schurz 43 

money to be raised by the people, through repre- 
sentatives, voluntarily taxing themselves; trust of 
extraordinary power to be voluntarily granted ; and 
war measures, not seldom restricting the rights 
and liberties to which the citizen was accustomed, 
to be voluntarily accepted and submitted to by 
the people, or at least a large majority of them; — 
and that this would have to be kept up not merely 
during a short period of enthusiastic excitement, 
but possibly through weary years of alternating 
success and disaster, hope and despondency. He 
knew that in order to steer this government by 
public opinion successfully through all the con- 
fusion created by the prejudices and doubts and dif- 
ferences of sentiment distracting the popular mind, 
and so to propitiate, inspire, mould, organize, unite, 
and guide the popular will that it might give forth 
all the means required for the performance of his 
great task, he would have to take into account all 
the influences strongly affecting the current of popu- 
lar thought and feeling, and to direct while appearing 
to obey. 

This was the kind of leadership he intuitively 
conceived to be needed when a free people were to be 
led forward en masse to overcome a great common 
danger under circumstances of appalling difficulty, 
— the leadership which does not dash ahead with 
brilliant daring, no matter who follows, but which is 
intent upon rallying all the available forces, gather- 
ing in the stragglers, closing up the column, so that 
the front may advance well supported. For this 
leadership Abraham Lincoln was admirably fitted, 



44 Abraham Lincoln 

— ^better than any other American statesman of his 
day; for he understood the plain people, with all 
their loves and hates, their prejudices and their noble 
impulses, their weaknesses and their strength, as 
he understood himself, and his sympathetic nature 
was apt to draw their sympathy to him. 

His inaugural address foreshadowed his official 
course in characteristic manner. Although yielding 
nothing in point of principle, it was by no means a 
flaming antislavery manifesto, such as would have 
pleased the more ardent Republicans. It was 
rather the entreaty of a sorrowing father speaking to 
his wayward children. In the kindliest language 
he pointed out to the secessionists how ill advised 
their attempt at disunion was, and why, for their 
own sakes, they should desist. Almost plaintively, 
he told them that, while it was not their duty to de- 
stroy the Union, it was his sworn duty to preserve it ; 
that the least he could do, under the obligations of 
his oath, was to possess and hold the property of the 
United States; that he hoped to do this peaceably; 
that he abhorred war for any purpose, and that they 
would have none unless they themselves were the 
aggressors. It was a masterpiece of persuasiveness, 
and while Lincoln had accepted many valuable 
amendments suggested by Seward, it was essentially 
his own. Probably Lincoln himself did not expect 
his inaugural address to have any effect upon the 
secessionists, for he must have known them to be 
resolved upon disunion at any cost. But it was an 
appeal to the wavering minds in the North, and upon 
them it made a profound impression. Every candid 



Carl Schurz 45 

man, however timid and halting, had to admit that 
the President was bound by his oath to do his duty ; 
that under that oath he could do no less than he said 
he would do; that if the secessionists resisted such 
an appeal as the President had made, they were bent 
upon mischief, and that the government must be 
supported against them. The partisan sympathy 
with the Southern insurrection which still existed 
in the North did indeed not disappear, but it di- 
minished perceptibly under the influence of such 
reasoning. Those who still resisted it did so at the 
risk of appearing unpatriotic. 

It must not be supposed, however, that Lincoln 
at once succeeded in pleasing everybody, even 
among his friends, — even among those nearest to 
him. In selecting his cabinet, which he did sub- 
stantially before he left Springfield for Washington, 
he thought it wise to call to his assistance the strong 
men of his party, especially those who had given 
evidence of the support they commanded as his 
competitors in the Chicago convention. In them he 
found at the same time representatives of the differ- 
ent shades of opinion within the party, and of the 
different elements — former Whigs and former Demo- 
crats — from which the party had recruited itself. 
This was sound policy under the circumstances. It 
might indeed have been foreseen that among the 
members of a cabinet so composed, troublesome 
disagreements and rivalries would break out. But 
it was better for the President to have these strong 
and ambitious men near him as his co-operators than 
to have them as his critics in Congress, where their 



4^ Abraham Lincoln 

differences might have been composed in a common 
opposition to him. As members of his cabinet he 
could hope to control them, and to keep them 
busily employed in the service of a common purpose, 
if he had the strength to do so. Whether he did 
possess this strength was soon tested by a singularly 
rude trial. 

There can be no doubt that the foremost members 
of his cabinet, Seward and Chase, the most eminent 
Republican statesmen, had felt themselves wronged 
by their party when in its national convention it 
preferred to them for the Presidency a man whom, 
not unnaturally, they thought greatly their inferior 
in ability and experience as well as in service. The 
soreness of that disappointment was intensified 
when they saw this Western man in the White House, 
with so much of rustic manner and speech as still 
clung to him, meeting his fellow-citizens, high and 
low, on a footing of equality, with the simplicity of 
his good nature unburdened by any conventional 
dignity of deportment, and dealing with the great 
business of state in an easy-going, unmethodical, 
and apparently somewhat irreverent way. They 
did not understand such a man. Especially Seward, 
who, as Secretary of State, considered himself next 
to the Chief Executive, and who quickly accustomed 
himself to giving orders and making arrangements 
upon his own motion, thought it necessary that he 
should rescue the direction of public affairs from 
hands so unskilled, and take full charge of them 
himself. At the end of the first month of the admin- 
istration he submitted a "memorandum" to Presi- 



Carl Schurz 47 

dent Lincoln, which has been first brought to light 
by Nicolay and Hay, and is one of their most 
valuable contributions to the history of those days. 
In that paper Seward actually told the President that 
at the end of a month's administration the govern- 
ment was still without a policy, either domestic or 
foreign; that the slavery question should be elimi- 
nated from the struggle about the Union; that the 
matter of the maintenance of the forts and other 
possessions in the South should be decided with 
that view; that explanations should be demanded 
categorically from the governments of Spain and 
France, which were then preparing, one for the an- 
nexation of San Domingo, and both for the invasion 
of Mexico ; that if no satisfactory explanations were 
received war should be declared against Spain and 
France by the United States; that explanations 
should also be sought from Russia and Great Britain, 
and a vigorous continental spirit of independence 
against European intervention be aroused all over 
the American continent; that this policy should be 
incessantly pursued and directed by somebody; 
that either the President should devote himself en- 
tirely to it, or devolve the direction on some member 
of his cabinet, whereupon all debate on this policy 
must end. 

This could be understood only as a formal demand 
that the President should acknowledge his own 
incompetency to perform his duties, content himself 
with the amusement of distributing post-offices, and 
resign his power as to all important affairs into the 
hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day 



48 Abraham Lincoln 

incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's cali- 
bre could at that period conceive a plan of policy in 
which the slavery question had no place; a policy 
which rested upon the utterly delusive assumption 
that the secessionists, who had already formed their 
Southern Confederacy and were with stern resolu- 
tion preparing to fight for its independence, could 
be hoodwinked back into the Union by some senti- 
mental demonstration against European interfer- 
ence; a policy which, at that critical moment, would 
have involved the Union in a foreign war, thus 
inviting foreign intervention in favor of the Southern 
Confederacy, and increasing tenfold its chances in 
the struggle for independence. But it is equally in- 
comprehensible how Seward could fail to see that this 
demand of an unconditional surrender was a mortal 
insult to the head of the government, and that by 
putting his proposition on paper he delivered himself 
into the hands of the very man he had insulted ; for, 
had Lincoln, as most Presidents would have done, 
instantly dismissed Seward, and published the true 
reason for that dismissal, it would inevitably have 
been the end of Seward's career. But Lincoln did 
what not many of the noblest and greatest men in 
history would have been noble and great enough to 
do. He considered that Seward was still capable of 
rendering great service to his country in the place 
in which he was, if rightly controlled. He ignored 
the insult, but firmly established his superiority. 
In his reply, which he forthwith despatched, he told 
Seward that the administration had a domestic policy 
as laid down in the inaugural address with Seward's 



Carl Schurz 49 

approval; that it had a foreign policy as traced in 
Seward's despatches with the President's approval; 
that if any policy was to be maintained or changed, 
he, the President, was to direct that on his responsi- 
bility; and that in performing that duty the Presi- 
dent had a right to the advice of his secretaries. 
Seward's fantastic schemes of foreign war and con- 
tinental policies Lincoln brushed aside by passing 
them over in silence. Nothing more was said. 
Seward must have felt that he was at the mercy of a 
superior man; that his offensive proposition had 
been generously pardoned as a temporary aberration 
of a great mind, and that he could atone for it only 
by devoted personal loyalty. This he did. He was 
thoroughly subdued, and thenceforth submitted to 
Lincoln his despatches for revision and amendment 
without a murmur. The war with European na- 
tions was no longer thought of ; the slavery question 
found in due time its proper place in the struggle 
for the Union ; and when, at a later period, the dis- 
missal of Seward was demanded by dissatisfied 
senators, who attributed to him the shortcomings of 
the administration, Lincoln stood stoutly by his 
faithful Secretary of State. 

Chase, the Secretary of the Treasury, a man of 
superb presence, of eminent ability and ardent 
patriotism, of great natural dignity and a certain 
outward coldness of manner, which made him ap- 
pear more difficult of approach than he really was, 
did not permit his disappointment to burst out in 
such extravagant demonstrations. But Lincoln's 
ways were so essentially different from his that they 

VOL. I. — 4. 



50 Abraham Lincoln 

never became quite intelligible, and certainly not 
congenial to him. It might, perhaps, have been 
better had there been, at the beginning of the ad- 
ministration, some decided clash between Lincoln 
and Chase, as there was between Lincoln and 
Seward, to bring on a full mutual explanation, and 
to make Chase appreciate the real seriousness of 
Lincoln's nature. But, as it was, their relations 
always remained somewhat formal, and Chase never 
felt quite at ease under a chief whom he could not 
understand, and whose character and powers he 
never learned to esteem at their true value. At the 
same time, he devoted himself zealously to the 
duties of his department, and did the country 
arduous service under circumstances of extreme 
difficulty. Nobody recognized this more heartily 
than Lincoln himself, and they managed to work 
together until near the end of Lincoln's first Presi- 
dential term, when Chase, after some disagreements 
concerning appointments to office, resigned from the 
treasury; and, after Taney's death, the President 
made him Chief Justice. 

The rest of the cabinet consisted of men of less 
eminence, who subordinated themselves more easily. 
In January, 1862, Lincoln found it necessary to bow 
Cameron out of the war office, and to put in his place 
Edwin M. Stanton, a man of intensely practical 
mind, vehement impulses, fierce positiveness, ruth- 
less energy, immense working power, lofty patriot- 
ism, and severest devotion to duty. He accepted the 
war office not as a partisan, for he had never been a 
Republican, but only to do all he could in "helping 



I 



Carl Schurz 51 

to save the country." The manner in which Lin- 
coln succeeded in taming this lion to his will, by 
frankly recognizing his great qualities, by giving him 
the most generous confidence, by aiding him in his 
work to the full of his power, by kindly concession or 
affectionate persuasiveness in cases of differing opin- 
ions, or, when it was necessary, by firm assertions 
of superior authority, bears the highest testimony 
to his skill in the management of men. Stanton, 
who had entered the service with rather a mean 
opinion of Lincoln's character and capacity, became 
one of his warmest, most devoted, and most admir- 
ing friends, and with none of his secretaries was 
Lincoln's intercourse more intimate. To take advice 
with candid readiness, and to weigh it without any 
pride of his own opinion, was one of Lincoln's pre- 
eminent virtues; but he had not long presided over 
his cabinet council when his was felt by all its mem- 
bers to be the ruling mind. 

The cautious policy foreshadowed in his inaugu- 
ral address, and pursued during the first period of 
the civil war, was far from satisfying all his party 
friends. The ardent spirits among the Union men 
thought that the whole North should at once be 
called to arms, to crush the rebellion by one power- 
ful blow. The ardent spirits among the anti- 
slavery men insisted that, slavery having brought 
forth the rebellion, this powerful blow should at 
once be aimed at slavery. Both complained that the 
administration was spiritless, undecided, and lament- 
ably slow in its proceedings. Lincoln reasoned 
otherwise. The ways of thinking and feeling of the 



52 Abraham Lincoln 

masses, of the plain people, were constantly present 
to his mind. The masses, the plain people, had to 
furnish the men for the fighting, if fighting was to be 
done. He believed that the plain people would be 
ready to fight when it clearly appeared necessary, 
and that they would feel that necessity when they 
felt themselves attacked. He therefore waited until 
the enemies of the Union struck the first blow. As 
soon as, on the 12th of April, 1861, the first gun was 
fired in Charleston harbor on the Union flag upon 
Fort Sumter, the call was sounded, and the Northern 
people rushed to arms. 

Lincoln knew that the plain people were now 
indeed ready to fight in defence of the Union, but 
not yet ready to fight for the destruction of slavery. 
He declared openly that he had a right to summon 
the people to fight for the Union, but not to summon 
them to fight for the abolition of slavery as a primary 
object; and this declaration gave him numberless 
soldiers for the Union who at that period would have 
hesitated to do battle against the institution of 
slavery. For a time he succeeded in rendering 
harmless the cry of the partisan opposition that the 
Republican administration were perverting the war 
for the Union into an "abolition war." But when 
he went so far as to countermand the acts of some 
generals in the field, looking to the emancipation of 
the slaves in the districts covered by their commands, 
loud complaints arose from earnest antislavery 
men, who accused the President of turning his back 
upon the antislavery cause. Many of these anti- 
slavery men will now, after a calm retrospect, be 



Carl Schurz 53 

willing to admit that it would have been a hazardous 
policy to endanger, by precipitating a demonstrative 
fight against slavery, the success of the struggle for 
the Union. 

Lincoln's views and feelings concerning slavery 
had not changed. Those who conversed with him 
intimately upon the subject at that period know 
that he did not expect slavery long to survive the 
triumph of the Union, even if it were not immedi- 
ately destroyed by the war. In this he was right. 
Had the Union armies achieved a decisive victory in 
an early period of the conflict, and had the seceded 
States been received back with slavery, the "slave 
power" would then have been a defeated power, — 
defeated in an attempt to carry out its most effect- 
ive threat. It would have lost its prestige. Its 
menaces would have been hollow sound, and ceased 
to make any one afraid. It could no longer have 
hoped to expand, to maintain an equiHbrium in any 
branch of Congress, and to control the government. 
The victorious free States would have largely over- 
balanced it. It would no longer have been able to 
withstand the onset of a hostile age. It could no 
longer have ruled, ^and slavery had to rule in order 
to live. It would have lingered for a while, but it 
would surely have been "in the course of ultimate 
extinction." A prolonged war precipitated the 
destruction of slavery ; a short war might only have 
prolonged its death struggle. Lincoln saw this 
clearly; but he saw also that, in a protracted death 
struggle, it might still have kept disloyal sentiments 
alive, bred distracting commotions, and caused great 



54 Abraham Lincoln 

mischief to the country. He therefore hoped that 
slavery would not survive the war. 

But the question how he could rightfully employ 
his power to bring on its speedy destruction was to 
him not a question of mere sentiment. He himself 
set forth his reasoning upon it, at a later period, in 
one of his inimitable letters. "I am naturally anti- 
slavery," said he. "If slavery is not wrong, nothing 
is wrong. I cannot remember the time when I did 
not so think and feel. And yet I have never under- 
stood that the Presidency conferred upon me an 
unrestricted right to act upon that judgment and 
feeling. It was in the oath I took that I would, to 
the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend 
the Constitution of the United States. I could not 
take the office without taking the oath. Nor was it 
my view that I might take an oath to get power, and 
break the oath in using that power. I understood, 
too, that, in ordinary civil administration, this oath 
even forbade me practically to indulge my private 
abstract judgment on the moral question of slavery. 
I did understand, however, also, that my oath im- 
posed upon 'me the duty of preserving, to the best 
of my ability, by every indispensable means, that 
government, that nation, of which the Constitution 
was the organic law. I could not feel that, to the 
best of my ability, I had even tried to preserve the 
Constitution if, to save slavery, or any minor matter, 
I should permit the wreck of government, country, 
and Constitution all together." In other words, if 
the salvation of the government, the Constitution, 
and the Union demanded the destruction of slavery. 



Carl Schurz 55 

he felt it to be not only his right, but his sworn duty 
to destroy it. Its destruction became a necessity of 
the war for the Union. 

As the war dragged on and disaster followed 
disaster, the sense of that necessity steadily grew 
upon him. Early in 1862, as some of his friends 
well remember, he saw, what Seward seemed not to 
see, that to give the war for the Union an anti- 
slavery character was the surest means to prevent 
the recognition of the Southern Confederacy as an 
independent nation by European powers; that, 
■ slavery being abhorred by the moral sense of civilized 
mankind, no European government would dare to 
offer so gross an insult to the public opinion of its 
people as openly to favor the creation of a state 
founded upon slavery to the prejudice of an existing 
nation fighting against slavery. He saw also that 
slavery untouched was to the rebellion an element of 
power, and that in order to overcome that power it 
was necessary to turn it into an element of weakness. 
Still, he felt no assurance that the plain people were 
prepared for so radical a measure as the emancipa- 
tion of the slaves by act of the government, and he 
anxiously considered that, if they were not, this great 
step might, by exciting dissension at the North, 
injure the cause of the Union in one quarter more 
than it would help it in another. He heartily 
welcomed an effort made in New York to mould and 
stimulate public sentiment on the slavery question 
by public meetings boldly pronouncing for emanci- 
pation. At the same time he himself cautiously 
advanced with a recommendation, expressed in a 



56 Abraham Lincoln 

special message to Congress, that the United States 
should co-operate with any State which might adopt 
the gradual abolishment of slavery, giving such 
State pecuniary aid to compensate the former 
owners of emanicipated slaves. The discussion 
was started, and spread rapidly. Congress adopted 
the resolution recommended, and soon went a step 
farther in passing a bill to abolish slavery in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia. The plain people began to look 
at emancipation on a larger scale as a thing to be 
considered seriously by patriotic citizens; and soon 
Lincoln thought that the time was ripe, and that 
the edict of freedom could be ventured upon without 
danger of serious confusion in the Union ranks. 

The failure of McClellan's movement upon Rich- 
mond increased immensely the prestige of the enemy. 
The need of some great act to stimulate the vital- 
ity of the Union cause seemed to grow daily more 
pressing. On July 21, 1862, Lincoln surprised his 
cabinet with the draught of a proclamation declaring 
free the slaves in all the States that should be still 
in rebellion against the United States on the ist of 
January, 1 863 . As to the matter itself he announced 
that he had fully made up his mind; he invited ad- 
vice only concerning the form and the time of publi- 
cation. Seward suggested that the - proclamation, 
if then brought out, amidst disaster and distress, 
would sound like the last shriek of a perishing cause. 
Lincoln accepted the suggestion, and the proclama- 
tion was postponed. Another defeat followed, the 
second at Bull Run. But when, after that battle, 
the Confederate army, under Lee, crossed the 



Carl Schurz 57 

Potomac and invaded Maryland, Lincoln vowed in 
his heart that, if the Union army were now blessed 
with success, the decree of freedom should surely 
be issued. The victory of Antietam was won on 
September 17, and the preliminary Emancipation 
Proclamation came forth on the 2 2d. It was Lin- 
coln's own resolution and act; but practically it 
bound the nation, and permitted no step backward. 
In spite of its limitations, it was the actual abolition 
of slavery. Thus he wrote his name upon the books 
of history with the title dearest to his heart, — ^the 
liberator of the slave. 

It is true, the great proclamation, which stamped 
the war as one for "union and freedom," did not 
at once mark the turning of the tide on the field 
of military operations. There were more disasters, 
— Fredericksburg and Chancellors ville. But with 
Gettysburg and Vicksburg the whole aspect of the 
war changed. Step by step, now more slowly, then 
more rapidly, but with increasing steadiness, the 
flag of the Union advanced from field to field toward 
the final consummation. The decree of emancipa- 
tion was naturally followed by the enlistment of 
emancipated negroes in the Union armies. This 
measure had a .'arther reaching effect than merely 
giving the Union armies an increased supply of men. 
The laboring force of the rebellion was hopelessly 
disorganized. The war became like a problem of 
arithmetic. As the Union armies pushed forward, 
the area from which the Southern Confederacy 
could draw recruits and supplies constantly grew 
smaller, while the area from which the Union 



58 Abraham Lincoln 

recruited its strength constantly grew larger; and 
everywhere, even within the Southern lines, the 
Union had its allies. The fate of the rebellion was 
then virtually decided; but it still required much 
bloody work to convince the brave warriors who 
fought for it that they were really beaten. 

Neither did the Emancipation Proclamation forth- 
with command universal assent among the people 
who were loyal to the Union. There were even signs 
of a reaction against the administration in the fall 
elections of 1862, seemingly justifying the opinion, 
entertained by many, that the President had really 
anticipated the development of popular feeling. 
The cry that the war for the Union had been turned 
into an "abolition war" was raised again by the 
opposition, and more loudly than ever. But the 
good sense and patriotic instincts of the plain people 
gradually marshalled themselves on Lincoln's side, 
and he lost no opportunity to help on this process by 
personal argument and admonition. There never 
has been a President in such constant and active con- 
tact with the public opinion of the country, as there 
never has been a President who, while at the head of 
the government, remained so near to the people. 
Beyond the circle of those who had long known him 
the feeling steadily grew that the man in the White 
House was "honest Abe Lincoln" still, and that 
every citizen nlight approach him with complaint, 
expostulation, or advice, without danger of meeting a 
rebuff from power-proud authority, or humiliating 
condescension; and this privilege was used by so 
many and with such unsparing freedom that only 



Carl Schurz 59 

superhuman patience could have endured it all. 
There are men now living who would to-day read 
with amazement, if not regret, what they ventured 
to say or write to him. But Lincoln repelled no 
one whom he believed to speak to him in good faith 
and with patriotic purpose. No good advice would 
go unheeded. No candid criticism would offend him. 
No honest opposition, while it might pain him, 
would produce a lasting alienation of feeling between 
him and the opponent. It may truly be said that 
few men in power have ever been exposed to more 
daring attempts to direct their course, to severer 
censure of their acts, and to more cruel misrepre- 
sentation of their motives. And all this he met 
with that good-natured humor peculiarly his own, 
and with untiring effort to see the right and to im- 
press it upon those who differed from him. The con- 
versations he had and the correspondence he carried 
on upon matters of public interest, not only with men 
in official position, but with private citizens, were 
almost unceasing, and in a large number of public 
letters, written ostensibly to meetings, or committees, 
or persons of importance, he addressed himself di- 
rectly to the popular mind. Most of these letters 
stand among the finest monuments of our political 
literature. Thus he presented the singular spectacle 
of a President who, in the midst of a great civil war, 
with unprecedented duties weighing upon him, was 
constantly in person debating the great features of 
his policy with the people. 

While in this manner he exercised an ever-in- 
creasing influence upon the popular understanding, 



6o Abraham Lincoln 

his sympathetic nature endeared him more and more 
to the popular heart. In vain did journals and 
speakers of the opposition represent him as a Hght- 
minded trifler, who amused himself with frivolous 
story-telling and coarse jokes, while the blood of the 
people was flowing in streams. The people knew 
that the man at the head of affairs, on whose hag- 
gard face the twinkle of humor so frequently changed 
into an expression of profoundest sadness, was more 
than any other deeply distressed by the suffering he 
witnessed; that he felt the pain of every wound 
that was inflicted on the battlefield, and the anguish 
of every woman or child who had lost husband or 
father; that whenever he could he was eager to 
alleviate sorrow, and that his mercy was never im- 
plored in vain. They looked to him as one who was 
with them and of them in all their hopes and fears, 
their joys and sorrows, — ^who laughed with them 
and wept with them ; and as his heart was theirs, so 
their hearts turned to him. His popularity was 
far different from that of Washington, who was 
revered with awe, or that of Jackson, the uncon- 
querable hero, for whom party enthusiasm never 
grew weary of shouting. To Abraham Lincoln the 
people became bound by a genuine sentimental 
attachment. It was not a matter of respect, or 
confidence, or party pride, for this feeling spread far 
beyond the boundary lines of his party ; it was an 
affair of the heart, independent of mere reasoning. 
When the soldiers in the field or their folks at home 
spoke of "Father Abraham," there was no cant in 
it. They felt that their President was really caring 



Carl Schurz 6i 

for them as a father would, and that they could go 
to him, every one of them, as they would go to a 
father, and talk to him of what troubled them, sure 
to find a willing ear and tender sympathy. Thus, 
their President, and his cause, and his endeavors, and 
his success gradually became to them almost matters 
of family concern. And this popularity carried him 
triumphantly through the Presidential election of 
1864, in spite of an opposition within his own party 
which at first seemed very formidable. 

Many of the radical antislavery men were never 
quite satisfied with Lincoln's ways of meeting the 
problems of the time. They were very earnest and 
mostly very able men, who had positive ideas as to 
"how this rebellion should be put down." They 
would not recognize the necessity of measuring the 
steps of the government according to the progress 
of opinion among the plain people. They criticised 
Lincoln's cautious management as irresolute, halt- 
ing, lacking in definite purpose and in energy; he 
should not have delayed emancipation so long; he 
should not have confided important commands to 
men of doubtful views as to slavery ; he should have 
authorized military commanders to set the slaves 
free as they went on ; he dealt too leniently with un- 
successful generals; he should have put down all 
factious opposition with a strong hand instead of 
trying to pacify it ; he should have given the people 
accomplished facts instead of arguing with them, 
and so on. It is true, these criticisms were not 
always entirely unfounded. Lincoln's policy had, 
with the virtues of democratic government, some of 



62 Abraham Lincoln 

its weaknesses, which in the presence of pressing 
exigencies were apt to deprive governmental action 
of the necessary vigor; and his kindness of heart, 
his disposition always to respect the feelings of 
others, frequently made him recoil from anything 
like severity, even when severity was urgently called 
for. But many of his radical critics have since then 
revised their judgment sufficiently to admit that 
Lincoln's policy was, on the whole, the wisest and 
safest ; that a policy of heroic methods, while it has 
sometimes accomplished great results, could in a 
democracy like ours be maintained only by constant 
success; that it would have quickly broken down 
under the weight of disaster ; that it might have been 
successful from the start, had the Union, at the 
beginning of the conflict, had its Grants and Sher- 
mans and Sheridans, its Farraguts and Porters, 
fully matured at the head of its forces; but that, 
as the great commanders had to be evolved slowly 
from the developments of the war, constant suc- 
cess could not be counted upon, and it was best to 
follow a policy which was in friendly contact with the 
popular force, and therefore more fit to stand trial 
of misfortune on the battlefield. But at that period 
they thought differently, and their dissatisfaction with 
Lincoln's doings was greatly increased by the steps 
he took toward the reconstruction of rebel States 
then partially in possession of the Union forces. 

In December, 1863, Lincoln issued an amnesty 
proclamation, offering pardon to all implicated in the 
rebellion, with certain specified exceptions, on con- 
dition of their taking and maintaining an oath to 



Carl Schurz 63 

support the Constitution and obey the laws of the 
United States and the proclamations of the Presi- 
dent with regard to slaves ; and also promising that 
when, in any of the rebel States, a number of citi- 
zens equal to one tenth of the voters in i860 should 
re-establish a state government in conformity with 
the oath above mentioned, such should be recog- 
nized by the Executive as the true government of the 
State. The proclamation seemed at first to be re- 
ceived with general favor. But soon another scheme 
of reconstruction, much more stringent in its pro- 
visions, was put forward in the House of Represent- 
atives by Henry Winter Davis. Benjamin Wade 
championed it in the Senate. It passed in the clos- 
ing moments of the session in July, 1864, and Lin- 
coln, instead of making it a law by his signature, 
embodied the text of it in a proclamation as a plan of 
reconstruction worthy of being earnestly considered. 
The differences of opinion concerning this subject 
had only intensified the feeling against Lincoln which 
had long been nursed among the radicals, and some 
of them openly declared their purpose of resisting 
his re-election to the Presidency. Similar sentiments 
were manifested by the advanced antislavery men 
of Missouri, who, in their hot faction-fight with the 
"conservatives" of that State, had not received 
from Lincoln the active support they demanded. 
Still another class of Union men, mainly in the East, 
gravely shook their heads when considering the ques- 
tion whether Lincoln should be re-elected. They 
were those who cherished in their minds an ideal of 
statesmanship and of personal bearing in high office 



64 Abraham Lincoln 

with which, in their opinion, Lincoln's individuaHty 
was much out of accord. They were shocked when 
they heard him cap an argument upon grave affairs 
of state with a story about ' ' a man out in Sanga- 
mon County, ' ' — a story, to be sure, strikingly 
clinching his point, but sadly lacking in dignity. 
They could not understand the man who was capa- 
ble, in opening a cabinet meeting, of reading to 
his secretaries a funny chapter from a recent book 
of Artemus Ward, with which in an unoccupied 
moment he had relieved his care-burdened mind, 
and who then solemnly informed the executive 
coimcil that he had vowed in his heart to issue a 
proclamation emancipating the slaves as soon as 
God blessed the Union arms with another victory. 
They were alarmed at the weakness of a President 
who would indeed resist the urgent remonstrances 
of statesmen against his policy, but could not resist 
the prayer of an old woman for the pardon of a sol- 
dier who was sentenced to be shot for desertion. 
Such men, mostly sincere and ardent patriots, not 
only wished, but earnestly set to work, to prevent 
Lincoln's renomination. Not a few of them actually 
believed, in 1863, that, if the national convention 
of the Union party were held then, Lincoln would 
not be supported by the delegation of a single 
State. But when the convention met at Baltimore, 
in June, 1864, the voice of the people was heard. 
On the first ballot Lincoln received the votes of the 
delegations from all the States except Missouri ; and 
even the Missourians turned over their votes to 
him before the result of the ballot was declared. 



Carl Schurz 65 

But even after his renomination the opposition 
to Lincoln within the ranks of the Union party did 
not subside. A convention, called by the dissatis- 
fied radicals in Missouri, and favored by men of a 
similar way of thinking in other States, had been 
held already in May, and had nominated as its candi- 
date for the Presidency General Fremont. He, 
indeed, did not attract a strong following, but oppo- 
sition movements from different quarters appeared 
more formidable. Henry Winter Davis and Ben- 
jamin Wade assailed Lincoln in a flaming mani- 
festo. Other Union men, of undoubted patriotism 
and high standing, persuaded themselves, and 
sought to persuade the people, that Lincoln's re- 
nomination was ill advised and dangerous to the 
Union cause. As the Democrats had put off their 
convention until the 29th of August, the Union 
party had, during the larger part of the summer, 
no opposing candidate and platform to attack, 
and the political campaign languished. Neither 
were the tidings from the theatre of war of a cheer- 
ing character. The terrible losses suffered by 
Grant's army in the battles of the Wilderness 
spread general gloom. Sherman seemed for a while 
to be in a precarious position before Atlanta. The 
opposition to Lincoln within the Union party grew 
louder in its complaints and discouraging predic- 
tions. Earnest demands were heard that his candi- 
dacy should be withdrawn. Lincoln himself, not 
knowing how strongly the masses were attached to 
him, was haunted by dark forebodings of defeat. 
Then the scene suddenly changed as if by magic. 

VOL. I.— S- 



66 Abraham Lincoln 

The Democrats, in their national convention, de- 
clared the war a failure, demanded, substantially, 
peace at any price, and nominated on such a plat- 
form General McClellan as their candidate. Their 
convention had hardly adjourned when the capture 
of Atlanta gave a new aspect to the military situa- 
tion. It was like a sun -ray bursting through a 
dark cloud. The rank and file of the Union party 
rose with rapidly growing enthusiasm. The song 
" We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred 
thousand strong," resounded all over the land. Long 
before the decisive day arrived, the result was be- 
yond doubt, and Lincoln was re-elected President 
by overwhelming majorities. The election over 
even his severest critics found themselves forced to 
admit that Lincoln was the only possible candidate 
for the Union party in 1864, and that neither politi- 
cal combinations nor campaign speeches, nor even 
victories in the field, were needed to insure his suc- 
cess. The plain people had all the while been satis- 
fied with Abraham Lincoln: they confided in him; 
they loved him; they felt themselves near to him; 
they saw personified in him the cause of Union and 
freedom ; and they went to the ballot-box for him in 
their strength. 

The hour of triumph called out the characteristic 
impulses of his nature. The opposition within the 
Union party had stung him to the quick. Now he 
had his opponents before him, baffled and humili- 
ated. Not a moment did he lose to stretch out the 
hand of friendship to all. ' ' Now that the election is 
over," he said, in response to a serenade, "may not 



Carl Schurz 67 

all, having a common interest, reunite in a common 
effort to save our common country? For my own 
part, I have striven, and will strive, to place no 
obstacle in the way. So long as I have been here 
I have not willingly planted a thorn in any man's 
bosom. While I am deeply sensible to the high 
compliment of a re-election, it adds nothing to my 
satisfaction that any other man may be pained or 
disappointed by the result. May I ask those who 
were with me to join with me in the same spirit 
toward those who were against me?" This was 
Abraham Lincoln's character as tested in the fur- 
nace of prosperity. 

The war was virtually decided, but not yet ended. 
Sherman was irresistibly carrying the Union flag 
through the South. Grant had his iron hand upon 
the ramparts of Richmond. The days of the Con- 
federacy were evidently numbered. Only the last 
blow remained to be struck. Then Lincoln's second 
inauguration came, and with it his second inaugural 
address. Lincoln's famous "Gettysburg speech" 
has been ranch and justly admired. But far 
greater, as well as far more characteristic, was 
that inaugural in which he poured out the whole 
devotion and tenderness of his great soul. It had 
all the solemnity of a father's last admonition and 
blessing to his children before he lay down to die. 
These were its closing words: "Fondly do we hope, 
fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war 
may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it 
continue until all the wealth piled up by the bond- 
man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil 



68 Abraham Lincoln 

shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn 
with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with 
the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so 
still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord 
are true and righteous altogether.' With malice 
toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in 
the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive 
to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the nation's 
wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the 
battle, and for his widow and his orphan; to do all 
which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting 
peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

This was like a sacred poem. No American 
President had ever spoken words like these to the 
American people. America never had a President 
who found such words in the depth of his heart. 

Now followed the closing scenes of the war. The 
Southern armies fought bravely to the last, but all in 
vain. Richmond fell. Lincoln himself entered the 
city on foot, accompanied only by a few officers and 
a squad of sailors who had rowed him ashore from the 
flotilla in the James River, a negro picked up on the 
way serving as a guide. Never had the world seen 
a more modest conqueror and a more characteristic 
triumphal procession, — no army with banners and 
drums, only a throng of those who had been slaves, 
hastily run together, escorting the victorious chief 
into the capital of the vanquished foe. We are told 
that they pressed around him, kissed his hands 
and his garments, and shouted and danced for joy, 
while tears ran down the President's care-furrowed 
cheeks. 



Carl Schurz 69 

A few days more brought the surrender of Lee's 
army, and peace was assured. The people of the 
North were wild with joy. Ever3rwhere festive guns 
were booming, bells pealing, the churches ringing 
with thanksgivings, and jubilant multitudes throng- 
ing the thoroughfares, when suddenly the news 
flashed over the land that Abraham Lincoln had been 
murdered. The people were stunned by the blow. 
Then a wail of sorrow went up such as America had 
never heard before. Thousands of Northern house- 
holds grieved as if they had lost their dearest mem- 
ber. Many a Southern man cried out in his heart 
that his people had been robbed of their best friend 
in their humiliation and distress, when Abraham 
Lincoln was struck down. It was as if the tender 
affection which his countrymen bore him had in- 
spired all nations with a common sentiment. All 
civilized mankind stood mourning around the coffin 
of the dead President. Many of those, here and 
abroad, who not long before had ridiculed and 
reviled him were among the first to hasten on with 
their flowers of eulogy, and in that universal chorus 
of lamentation and praise there was not a voice that 
did not tremble with genuine emotion. Never since 
Washington's death had there been such unanimity 
of judgment as to a man's virtues and greatness; 
and even Washington's death, although his name 
was held in greater reverence, did not touch so 
sympathetic a chord in the people's hearts. 

Nor can it be said that this was owing to the tragic 
character of Lincoln's end. It is true, the death of 
this gentlest and most merciful of rulers by the hand 



70 Abraham Lincoln 

of a mad fanatic was well apt to exalt him beyond 
his merits in the estimation of those who loved him, 
and to make his renown the object of peculiarly 
tender solicitude. But it is also true that the verdict 
pronounced upon him in those days has been affected 
little by time, and that historical inquiry has served 
rather to increase than to lessen the appreciation 
of his virtues, his abilities, his services. Giving the 
fullest measure of credit to his great ministers, — to 
Seward for his conduct of foreign affairs, to Chase 
for the management of the finances imder terrible 
difhculties, to Stanton for the performance of his 
tremendous task as war secretary, — and readily 
acknowledging that without the skill and fortitude 
of the great commanders, and the heroism of the 
soldiers and sailors under them, success could not 
have been achieved, the historian still finds that 
Lincoln's judgment and will were by no means 
governed by those around him; that the most im- 
portant steps were owing to his initiative; that his 
was the deciding and directing mind ; and that it was 
pre-eminently he whose sagacity and whose character 
enlisted for the administration in its struggles the 
countenance, the sympathy, and the support of the 
people. It is found, even, that his judgment on 
military matters was astonishingly acute, and that 
the advice and instructions he gave to the generals 
commanding in the field would not seldom have done 
honor to the ablest of them. History, therefore, 
without overlooking, or palliating, or excusing any 
of his shortcomings or mistakes, continues to place 
him foremost among the saviours of the Union and 



Carl Schurz 71 

the liberators of the slave. More than that, it 
awards to him the merit of having accomplished 
what but few political philosophers would have 
recognized as possible, — of leading the republic 
through four years of furious civil conflict without 
any serious detriment to its free institutions. 

He was, indeed, while President, violently de- 
nounced by the opposition as a tyrant and a usurper, 
for having gone beyond his constitutional powers in 
authorizing or permitting the temporary suppression 
of newspapers, and in wantonly suspending the writ 
of habeas corpus and resorting to arbitrary arrests. 
Nobody should be blamed who, when such things 
are done, in good faith and from patriotic motives 
protests against them. In a republic, arbitrary 
stretches of power, even when demanded by neces- 
sity, should never be permitted to pass without a 
protest on the one hand, and without an apology on 
the other. It is well they did not so pass during our 
civil war. That arbitrary measures were resorted 
to is true. That they were resorted to most spar- 
ingly, and only when the government thought them 
absolutely required by the safety of the republic, 
will now hardly be denied. But certain it is that 
the history of the world does not furnish a single ex- 
ample of a government passing through so tremen- 
dous a crisis as our civil war was with so small a record 
of arbitrary acts, and so little interference with the 
ordinary course of law outside the field of military 
operations. No American President ever wielded 
such power as that which was thrust into Lincoln's 
hands. It is to be hoped that no American Presi- 



72 Abraham Lincoln 

dent ever will have to be entrusted with such power 
again. But no man was ever entrusted with it to 
whom its seductions were less dangerous than they 
proved to be to Abraham Lincoln. With scrupu- 
lous care he endeavored, even under the most trying 
circumstances, to remain strictly within the con- 
stitutional limitations of his authority; and when- 
ever the boundary became indistinct, or when the 
dangers of the situation forced him to cross it, he 
was equally careful to mark his acts as exceptional 
measures, justifiable only by the imperative neces- 
sities of the civil war, so that they might not pass into 
history as precedents for similar acts in time of peace. 
It is an unquestionable fact that during the recon- 
struction period which followed the war, more things 
were done capable of serving as dangerous pre- 
cedents than during the war itself. Thus it may 
truly be said of him not only that under his guidance 
the republic was saved from disruption a,nd the 
country was purified of the blot of slavery, but that, 
during the stormiest and most perilous crisis in our 
history, he so conducted the government and so 
wielded his almost dictatorial power as to leave 
essentially intact our free institutions in all things 
that concern the rights and liberties of the citizens. 
He understood well the nature of the problem. In 
his first message to Congress he defined it in admir- 
ably pointed language: "Must a government be of 
necessity too strong for the liberties of its own people, 
or too weak to maintain its own existence ? Is there 
in all republics this inherent weakness ? " This ques- 
tion he answered in the name of the great American 



Carl Schurz 73 

republic, as no man could have answered it better, 
with a triumphant "No." 

It has been said that Abraham Lincoln died at the 
right moment for his fame. However that may be, 
he had, at the time of his death, certainly not ex- 
hausted his usefulness to his country. He was proba- 
bly the only man who could have guided the nation 
through the perplexities of the reconstruction period 
in such a manner as to prevent in the work of peace 
the revival of the passions of the war. He would in- 
deed not have escaped serious controversy as to 
details of policy; but he could have weathered it 
far better than any other statesman of his time, for 
his prestige with the active politicians had been 
immensely strengthened by his triumphant re-elec- 
tion; and, what is more important, he would have 
been supported by the confidence of the victorious 
Northern people that he would do all to secure the 
safety of the Union and the rights of the emancipated 
negro, and at the same time by the confidence of 
the defeated Southern people that nothing would be 
done by him from motives of vindictiveness, or of 
unreasoning fanaticism, or of a selfish party spirit. 
"With malice toward none, with charity for all," 
the foremost of the victors would have personified 
in himself the genius of reconciliation. 

He might have rendered the country a great service 
in another direction. A few days after the fall of 
Richmond, he pointed out to a friend the crowd of 
office-seekers besieging his door. "Look at that," 
said he. "Now we have conquered the rebellion, 
but here you see something that may become more 



74 Abraham Lincoln 

dangerous to this repubhc than the rebelHon itself.". 
It is true, Lincoln as President did not profess what 
we now call civil service reform principles. He used 
the patronage of the government in many cases 
avowedly to reward party work, in many others to 
form combinations and to produce political effects 
advantageous to the Union cause, and in still others 
simply to put the right man into the right place. 
But in his endeavors to strengthen the Union cause, 
and in his search for able and useful men for public 
duties, he frequently went beyond the limits of his 
party, and gradually accustomed himself to the 
thought that, while party service had its value, 
considerations of the public interest were, as to 
appointments to office, of far greater consequence. 
Moreover, there had been such a mingling of dif- 
ferent political elements in support of the Union 
during the civil war that Lincoln, standing at the head 
of that temporarily united motley mass, hardly felt 
himself, in the narrow sense of the term, a party 
man. And as he became strongly impressed with 
the dangers brought upon the republic by the use of 
public offices as party spoils, it is by no means im- 
probable that, had he survived the all-absorbing 
crisis and found time to turn to other objects, one of 
the most important reforms of later days would have 
been pioneered by his powerful authority. This was 
not to be. But the measure of his achievements was 
full enough for immortality. 

To the younger generation Abraham Lincoln has 
already become a half -mythical figure, which, in the 
haze of historic distance, grows to more and more 



Carl Schurz 75 

heroic proportions, but also loses in distinctness of 
outline and feature. This is indeed the common lot 
of popular heroes; but the Lincoln legend will be 
more than ordinarily apt to become fanciful, as 
his individuality, assembling seemingly incongruous 
qualities and forces in a character at the same time 
grand and most lovable, was so unique, and his 
career so abounding in startling contrasts. As the 
state of society in which Abraham Lincoln grew up 
passes away, the world will read with increasing 
wonder of the man who, not only of the humblest 
origin, but remaining the simplest and most un- 
pretending of citizens, was raised to a position of 
power unprecedented in our history; who was the 
gentlest and most peace-loving of mortals, unable to 
see any creature suffer without a pang in his own 
breast, and suddenly found himself called to con- 
duct the greatest and bloodiest of our wars; who 
wielded the power of government when stem resolu- 
tion and relentless force were the order of the day 
and then won and ruled the popular mind and heart 
by the tender sympathies of his nature; who was a 
cautious conservative by temperament and mental 
habit, and led the most sudden and sweeping social 
revolution of our time; who, preserving his homely 
speech and rustic manner even in the most conspicu- 
ous position of that period, drew upon himself the 
scoffs of polite society, and then thrilled the soul 
of mankind with utterances of wonderful beauty 
and grandeur; who, in his heart the best friend of 
the defeated South, was murdered because a crazy 
fanatic took him for its most cruel enemy; who, 



76 Abraham Lincoln 

while in power, was beyond measure lampooned and 
maligned by sectional passion and an excited party 
spirit, and around whose bier friend and foe gathered 
to praise him — ^which they have since never ceased 
to do — as one of the greatest of Americans and the 
best of men. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

By JOSEPH H. CHOATE 



77 



Copyright, 1901 
Bv Thomas Y. Crowell & Company 



78 



This Address was delivered before the Edinburgh Philo- 
sophical Institution, November ij, igoo. It is included in 
this set with the courteous permission of the author and of 
Messrs. Thomas Y . Crowell <£r Company. 



79 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

WHEN you asked me to deliver the Inaugural 
Address on this occasion, I recognized that 
I owed this compliment to the fact that I was the 
official representative of America, and in selecting a 
subject I ventured to think that I might interest you 
for an hour in a brief study in popular government, 
as illustrated by the life of the most American of all 
Americans. I therefore offer no apology for asking 
your attention to Abraham Lincoln — to his unique 
character and the part he bore in two important 
achievements of modem history: the preservation 
of the integrity of the American Union and the 
emancipation of the colored race. 

During his brief term of power he was probably 
the object of more abuse, vilification, and ridicule 
than any other man in the world; but when he fell 
by the hand of an assassin, at the very moment of 
his stupendous victory, all the nations of the earth 
vied with one another in paying homage to his char- 
acter, and the thirty-five years that have since 
elapsed have established his place in history as one 
of the great benefactors not of his own country alone, 
but of the human race. 

One of many noble utterances upon the occasion 
of his death was that in which Punch made its 

VOL. I. — 6. o 



82 Abraham Lincoln 

magnanimous recantation of the spirit with which it 
had pursued him : 

" Beside this corpse that bears for winding sheet 
The stars and stripes he Hved to rear anew, 
Between the mourners at his head and feet, 
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you? 



" Yes, he had lived to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen — 
To make me own this hind — of princes peer. 
This rail-splitter — a true born king of men." 

Fiction can furnish no match for the romance of his 
life, and biography will be searched in vain for such 
startling vicissitudes of fortune, so great power and 
glory won out of such humble beginnings and ad- 
verse circumstances. 

Doubtless you are all familiar with the salient 
points of his extraordinary career. In the zenith of 
his fame he was the wise, patient, courageous, suc- 
cessful ruler of men ; exercising more power than any 
monarch of his time, not for himself, but for the good 
of the people who had placed it in his hands; com- 
mander-in-chief of a vast military power, which 
waged with ultimate success the greatest war of 
the century; the triumphant champion of popular 
government, the deliverer of four millions of his 
fellow-men from bondage; honored by mankind as 
Statesman, President, and Liberator. 

Let us glance now at the first half of the brief life 
of which this was the glorious and happy consum- 



Joseph H. Choate 83 

mation. Nothing could be more squahd and mis- 
erable than the home in which Abraham Lincoln was 
bom — a one-roomed cabin without floor or window 
in what was then the wilderness of Kentucky, in the 
heart of that frontier life which swiftly moved west- 
ward from the AUeghanies to the Mississippi, always 
in advance of schools and churches, of books and 
money, of railroads and newspapers, of all things 
which are generally regarded as the comforts and 
even necessaries of life. His father, ignorant, needy, 
and thriftless, content if he could keep soul and 
body together for himself and his family, was ever 
seeking, without success, to better his unhappy 
condition by moving on from one such scene of 
dreary desolation to another. The rude society 
which surrounded them was not much better. The 
struggle for existence was hard, and absorbed all 
their energies. They were fighting the forest, the 
wild beast, and the retreating savage. From the 
time when he could barely handle tools until he 
attained his majority, Lincoln's life was that of a 
simple farm laborer, poorly clad, housed, and fed, at 
work either on his father's wretched farm or hired 
out to neighboring farmers. But in spite, or per- 
haps by means, of this rude environment, he grew to 
be a stalwart giant, reaching six feet four at nineteen, 
and fabulous stories are told of his feats of strength. 
With the growth of this mighty frame began that 
strange education which in his ripening years was to 
qualify him for the great destiny that awaited him, 
and the development of those mental faculties and 
moral endowments which, by the time he reached 



84 Abraham Lincoln 

middle life, were to make him the sagacious, patient, 
and triumphant leader of a great nation in the crisis 
of its fate. His whole schooling, obtained during 
such odd times as could be spared from grinding 
labor, did not amount in all to as much as one year, 
and the quality of the teaching was of the lowest 
possible grade, including only the elements of read- 
ing, writing, and ciphering. But out of these simple 
elements, when rightly used by the right man, edu- 
cation is achieved, and Lincoln knew how to use 
them. As so often happens, he seemed to take 
warning from his father's unfortunate example. 
Untiring industry, an insatiable thirst for knowledge, 
and an ever-growing desire to rise above his sur- 
roundings, were early manifestations of his character. 
Books were almost unknown in that community, 
but the Bible was in every house, and somehow or 
other Pilgrim's Progress, Msop's Fables, a History of 
the United States, and a Life of Washington fell into 
his hands. He trudged on foot many miles through 
the wilderness to borrow an English Grammar, and 
is said to have devoured greedily the contents of the 
Statutes of Indiana that fell in his way. These few 
volumes he read and reread — and his power of 
assimilation was great. To be shut in with a few 
books and to master them thoroughly sometimes 
does more for the development of character than free- 
dom to range at large, in a cursory and indiscrimi- 
nate way, through wide domains of literature. This 
youth's mind, at any rate, was thoroughly saturated 
with Biblical knowledge and Biblical language, 
which, in after life, he used with great readiness and 



Joseph H. Choate 85 

effect. But it was the constant use of the little 
knowledge which he had that developed and exer- 
cised his mental powers. After the hard day's work 
was done, while others slept, he toiled on, always 
reading or writing. From an early age he did his 
own thinking and made up his own mind — invalu- 
able traits in the future President. Paper was such 
a scarce commodity that, by the evening firelight, 
he would write and cipher on the back of a wooden 
shovel, and then shave it off to make room for more. 
By and by, as he approached manhood, he began 
speaking in the rude gatherings of the neighborhood, 
and so laid the foundation of that art of persuad- 
ing his fellow-men which was one rich result of his 
education, and one great secret of his subsequent 
success. 

Accustomed as we are in these days of steam and 
telegraphs to have every intelligent boy survey the 
whole world each morning before breakfast, and 
inform himself as to what is going on in every nation, 
it is hardly possible to conceive how benighted and 
isolated was the condition of the community at 
Pigeon Creek in Indiana, of which the family of 
Lincoln's father formed a part, or how eagerly an 
ambitious and high-spirited boy, such as he, must 
have yearned to escape. The first glimpse that he 
ever got of any world beyond the narrow confines of 
his home was in 1828, at the age of nineteen, when 
a neighbor employed him to accompany his son 
down the river to New Orleans to dispose of a flat- 
boat of produce — a commission which he discharged 
with great success. 



86 Abraham Lincoln 

Shortly after his return from this his first excur-. 
sion into the outer world, his father, tired of failure in 
Indiana, packed his family and all his worldly goods 
into a single wagon drawn by two yoke of oxen, and 
after a fourteen days' tramp through the wilderness, 
pitched his camp ^ once more, in Illinois. Here 
Abraham, having come of age and being now his own 
master, rendered the last service of his minority by 
ploughing the fifteen-acre lot and splitting from the 
tall walnut trees of the primeval forest enough rails 
to surround the little clearing with a fence. Such 
was the meagre outfit of this coming leader of men, 
at the age when the future British Prime Minister or 
statesman emerges from the university as a double 
first or senior wrangler, with every advantage that 
high training and broad culture and association with 
the wisest and the best of men and women can give, 
and enters upon some form of public service on the 
road to usefulness and honor, the University course 
being only the first stage of the public training. So 
Lincoln, at twenty-one, had just begun his prepara- 
tion for the public life to which he soon began to 
aspire. For some years yet he must continue to 
earn his daily bread by the sweat of his brow, 
having absolutely no means, no home, no friend to 
consult. More farm work as a hired hand, a clerk- 
ship in a village store, the running of a mill, another 
trip to New Orleans on a flatboat of his own con- 
triving, a pilot's berth on the river — ^these were the 
means by which he subsisted until, in the summer of 
1832, when he was twenty-three years of age, an 
event occurred which gave him public recognition. 



Joseph H. Choate 87 

The Black Hawk war broke out, and, the Gover- 
nor of Illinois calling for volunteers to repel the band 
of savages whose leader bore that name, Lincoln 
enlisted and was elected captain by his comrades, 
among whom he had already established his supre- 
macy by signal feats of strength and more than one 
successful single combat. During the brief hostili- 
ties he was engaged in no battle and won no military 
glory, but his local leadership was established. The 
same year he offered himself as a candidate for the 
Legislature of Illinois, but failed at the polls. Yet 
his vast popularity with those who knew him was 
manifest. The district consisted of several counties, 
but the unanimous vote of the people of his own 
county was for Lincoln. Another unsuccessful at- 
tempt at store-keeping was followed by better luck 
at surveying, until his horse and instruments were 
levied upon under execution for the debts of his 
business adventure. 

I have been thus detailed in sketching his early 
years because upon these strange foundations the 
structure of his great fame and service was built. 
In the place of a school and university training 
fortune substituted these trials, hardships, and 
struggles as a preparation for the great work which 
he had to do. It turned out to be exactly what the 
emergency required. Ten years instead at the 
public school and the university certainly never 
could have fitted this man for the unique work which 
was to be thrown upon him. Some other Moses 
would have had to lead us to our Jordan, to the sight 
of our promised land of liberty. 



88 Abraham Lincoln 

At the age of twenty -five he became a member of 
the Legislature of Illinois, and so continued for eight 
years, and, in the meantime, qualified himself by 
reading such law books as he could borrow at ran- 
dom — for he was too poor to buy any — ^to be called 
to the Bar. For his second quarter of a century — 
during which a single term in Congress introduced 
him into the arena of national questions — he gave 
himself up to law and politics. In spite of his soaring 
ambition, his two years in Congress gave him no 
premonition of the great destiny that awaited him, 
and at its close, in 1849, we find him an imsuccessful 
applicant to the President for appointment as Com- 
missioner of the General Land Office — a purely ad- 
ministrative bureau; a fortunate escape for himself 
and for his country. Year by year his knowledge 
and power, his experience and reputation ex- 
tended, and his mental faculties seemed to grow l^y 
what they fed on. His power of persuasion, which 
had always been marked, was developed to an extra- 
ordinary degree, now that he became engaged in 
congenial questions and subjects. Little by little he 
rose to prominence at the Bar, and became the most 
effective public speaker in the West. Not that he 
possessed any of the graces of the orator; but his 
logic was invincible, and his clearness and force of 
statement impressed upon his hearers the convic- 
tions of his honest mind, while his broad sympathies 
and sparkling and genial humor made him a uni- 
versal favorite as far and as fast as his acquaintance 
extended. 

These twenty years that elapsed from the time of 



Joseph H. Choate 89 

his establishment as a lawyer and legislator in Spring- 
field, the new capital of Illinois, furnished a fitting 
theatre for the development and display of his great 
faculties, and, with his new and enlarged oppor- 
tunities, he obviously grew in mental stature in this 
second period of his career, as if to compensate for 
the absolute lack of advantages under which he had 
suffered in youth. As his powers enlarged, his repu- 
tation extended, for he was always before the people, 
felt a warm sympathy with all that concerned them, 
took a zealous part in the discussion of every public 
question, and made his personal influence ever more 
widely and deeply felt. 

My brethren of the legal profession will naturally 
ask me, how could this rough backwoodsman, whose 
youth had been spent in the forest or on the farm 
and the flatboat, without culture or training, edu- 
cation or study, by the random reading, on the wing, 
of a few miscellaneous law books, become a learned 
and accomplished lawyer? Well, he never did. He 
never woiild have earned his salt as a Writer for the 
Signet, nor have won a place as advocate in the 
Court of Session, where the technique of the profes- 
sion has reached its highest prefection, and centuries 
of learning and precedent are involved in the equip- 
ment of a lawyer. Dr. Holmes, when asked by an 
anxious young mother, ' ' When should the education 
of a child begin?" replied, "Madam, at least two 
centuries before it is bom!" and so I am sure it is 
with the Scots lawyer. 

But not so in Illinois in 1840. Between 1830 and 
1880 its population increased twenty-fold, and when 



90 Abraham Lincoln 

Lincoln began practising law in Springfield in 1837, 
life in Illinois was very crude and simple, and so were 
the courts and the administration of justice. Books 
and libraries were scarce. But the people loved 
justice, upheld the law, and followed the courts, 
and soon found their favorites among the advocates. 
The fundamental principles of the common law, as 
set forth by Blackstone and Chitty, were not so 
difBcult to acquire ; and brains, common sense, force 
of character, tenacity of purpose, ready wit and 
power of speech did the rest, and supplied all the 
deficiencies of learning. 

The lawsuits of those days were extremely simple, 
and the principles of natural justice were mainly 
relied on to dispose of them at the Bar and on the 
Bench, without resort to technical learning. Rail- 
roads, corporations absorbing the chief business of 
the community, combined and inherited wealth, 
with all the subtle and intricate questions they breed, 
had not yet come in — and so the professional agents 
and the equipment which they require were not 
needed. But there were many highly educated 
and powerful men at the Bar of Illinois, even in those 
early days, whom the spirit of enterprise had car- 
ried there in search of fame and fortune. It was by 
constant contact and conflict with these that Lincoln 
acquired professional strength and skill. Every 
community and every age creates its own Bar, 
entirely adequate for its present uses and necessities. 
So in Illinois, as the population and wealth of the 
State kept on doubling and quadrupling, its Bar 
presented a growing abundance of learning and 



Joseph H. Choate 91 

science and technical skill. The early practitioners 
grew with its growth and mastered the requisite 
knowledge. Chicago soon grew to be one of the 
largest and richest and certainly the most intensely 
active city on the continent, and if any of my pro- 
fessional friends here had gone there in Lincoln's 
later years, to try or argue a cause, or transact other 
business, with any idea that Edinburgh or Lon- 
don had a monopoly of legal learning, science, or 
subtlety, they would certainly have found their 
mistake. 

In those early days in the West, every lawyer, 
especially every court lawyer, was necessarily a 
politician, constantly engaged in the public discus- 
sion of the many questions evolved from the rapid 
development of town, county, State, and Federal 
affairs. Then and there, in this regard, public 
discussion supplied the place which the universal 
activity of the press has since monopolized, and the 
public speaker who, by clearness, force, earnestness, 
and wit, could make himself felt on the questions 
of the day would rapidly come to the front. In the 
absence of that immense variety of popular enter- 
tainments which now feed the public taste and 
appetite, the people found their chief amusement 
in frequenting the courts and public and political 
assemblies. In either place, he who impressed, 
entertained, and amused them most was the hero of 
the hour. They did not discriminate very carefully 
between the eloquence of the forum and the elo- 
quence of the hustings. Human nature ruled in 
both alike, and he who was the most effective 



92 Abraham Lincoln 

speaker in a political harangue was often retained 
as most likely to win in a cause to be tried or argued. 
And I have no doubt in this way many retainers 
came to Lincoln. Fees, money in any form, had no 
charms for him — ^in his eager pursuit of fame he 
could not afford to make money. He was ambi- 
tious to distinguish himself by some great service to 
mankind, and this ambition for fame and real public 
service left no room for avarice in his composition. 
However much he earned, he seems to have ended 
every year hardly richer than he began it, and yet, 
as the years passed, fees came to him freely. One 
of ;!^i,ooo is recorded — a very large professional fee 
at that time, even in any part of America, the para- 
dise of lawyers. I lay great stress on Lincoln's 
career as a lawyer — ^much more than his biographers 
do — ^because in America a state of things exists 
wholly different from that which prevails in Great 
Britain. The profession of the law always has been 
— and is to this day — the principal avenue to public 
life; and I am sure that his training and experience 
in the courts had much to do with the development 
of those forces of intellect and character which he 
soon displayed on a broader arena. 

It was in political controversy, of course, that he 
acquired his wide reputation, and made his deep and 
lasting impression upon the people of what had now 
become the powerful State of Illinois, and upon the 
people of the Great West, to whom the political 
power and control of the United States were already 
surely and swiftly passing from the older Eastern 
States. It was this reputation and this impression, 



Joseph H. Choate 93 

and the familiar knowledge of his character which 
had come to them from his local leadership, that 
happily inspired the people of the West to present 
him as their candidate, and to press him upon the 
Republican convention of i860 as the fit and neces- 
sary leader in the struggle for life which was before 
the nation. 

That struggle, as you all know, arose out of the 
terrible question of slavery — and I must trust to 
your general knowledge of the history of that ques- 
tion to make intelligible the attitude and leadership 
of Lincoln as the champion of the hosts of freedom 
in the final contest. Negro slavery had been firmly 
established in the Southern States from an early 
period of their history. In 161 9, the year before 
the Mayflower landed our Pilgrim Fathers upon 
Plymouth Rock, a Dutch ship had discharged a 
cargo of African slaves at Jamestown in Virginia. 
All through the colonial period their importation 
had continued. A few had found their way into the 
Northern States, but none of them in sufficient num- 
bers to constitute danger or to afford a basis for 
political power. At the time of the adoption of the 
Federal Constitution, there is no doubt that the prin- 
cipal members of the convention not only condemned 
slavery as a moral, social, and political evil, but be- 
lieved that by the suppression of the slave trade it 
was in the course of gradual extinction in the South, 
as it certainly was in the North. Washington, in his 
will, provided for the emancipation of his own slaves, 
and said to Jefferson that it "was among his first 
wishes to see some plan adopted by which slavery 



94 Abraham Lincoln 

in his country might be abolished." Jefferson said, , 
referring to the institution: "I tremble for my 
country when I think that God is just; that His 
justice cannot sleep forever," — and Franklin, Adams, 
Hamilton, and Patrick Henry were all utterly op- 
posed to it. But it was made the subject of a fatal 
compromise in the Federal Constitution, whereby 
its existence was recognized in the States as a basis 
of representation, the prohibition of the importa- 
tion of slaves was postponed for twenty years, and 
the return of fugitive slaves provided for. But no 
imminent danger was apprehended from it till, by the 
invention of the cotton gin in 1792, cotton culture by ' 
negro labor became at once and forever the leading 
industry of the South, and gave a new impetus to 
the importation of slaves, so that in 1808, when the 
constitutional prohibition took effect, their numbers 
had vastly increased. From that time forward 
slavery became the basis of a great political power, 
and the Southern States, under all circumstances and 
at every opportunity, carried on a brave and un- 
relenting struggle for its maintenance and extension. 
The conscience of the North was slow to rise 
against it, though bitter controversies from time to 
time took place. The Southern leaders threatened 
disunion if their demands were not complied with. 
To save the Union, compromise after compromise 
was made, but each one in the end was broken. 
The Missouri Compromise, made in 1820 upon the 
occasion of the admission of Missouri into the Union 
as a slave State, — ^whereby, in consideration of such 
admission, slavery was forever excluded from the 



Joseph H. Choate 95 

Northwest Territory, — ^was ruthlessly repealed in 
1854, by a Congress elected in the interests of the 
slave power, the intent being to force slavery into 
that vast territory which had so long been dedicated 
to freedom. This challenge at last aroused the 
slumbering conscience and passion of the North, and 
led to the formation of the Republican party for the 
avowed purpose of preventing, by constitutional 
methods, the further extension of slavery. 

In its first campaign, in 1856, though it failed to 
elect its candidates, it received a surprising vote and 
carried many of the States. No one could any longer 
doubt that the North had made up its mind that no 
threats of disunion should deter it from pressing its 
cherished purpose and performing its long neglected 
duty. From the outset, Lincoln was one of the most 
active and effective leaders and speakers of the new 
party, and the great debates between Lincoln and 
Douglas in 1858, as the respective champions of the 
restriction and extension of slavery, attracted the 
attention of the whole country. Lincoln's powerful 
arguments carried conviction everywhere. His moral 
nature was thoroughly aroused— his conscience was 
stirred to the quick. Unless slavery was wrong, 
nothing was wrong. Was each man, of whatever 
color, entitled to the fruits of his own labor, or could 
one man live in idle luxury by the sweat of another's 
brow, whose skin was darker? He was an implicit 
believer in that principle of the Declaration of In- 
dependence that all men are vested with certain 
inalienable rights — the equal rights to life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness. On this doctrine he 



96 Abraham Lincoln 

staked his case and carried it. We have time only 
for one or two sentences in which he struck the 
keynote of the contest : 

"The real issue in this country is the eternal 
struggle between these two principles — right and 
wrong — throughout the world. They are the two 
principles that have stood face to face from the 
beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. 
The one is the common right of humanity, and the 
other the divine right of kings. It is the same 
principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is 
the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and 
earn bread and I '11 eat it.'" 

He foresaw with unerring vision that the conflict 
was inevitable and irrepressible — that one or the 
other, the right or the wrong, freedom or slavery, 
must ultimately prevail and wholly prevail, through- 
out the country; and this was the principle that 
carried the war, once begun, to a finish. 

One sentence of his is immortal : 

"Under the operation of the policy of compromise, 
the slavery agitation has not only not ceased, but 
has constantly augmented. In my opinion it will 
not cease until a crisis shall have been reached and 
passed. 'A house divided against itself cannot 
stand.' I believe this government cannot endure 
permanently half slave and half free. I do not ex- 
pect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the 
house to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be 
divided. It will become all one thing or all the 
other; either the opponents of slavery will arrest the 
further spread of it, and place it where the public 



Joseph H. Choate 97 

mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course 
of ultimate extinction, or its advocates will push it 
forward till it shall become alike lawful in all the 
States, old as well as new, North as well as South." 
During the entire decade from 1850 to i860 the 
agitation of the slavery question was at the boiling 
point, and events which have become historical 
continually indicated the near approach of the over- 
whelming storm. No sooner had the Compromise 
Acts of 1850 resulted in a temporary peace, which 
everybody said must be final and perpetual, than 
new outbreaks came. The forcible carrying away 
of fugitive slaves by Federal troops from Boston 
agitated that ancient stronghold of freedom to its 
foundations. The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 
which truly exposed the frightful possibilities of the 
slave system; the reckless attempts by force and 
fraud to establish it in Kansas against the will of the 
vast majority of the settlers ; the beating of Sumner 
in the Senate Chamber for words spoken in debate; 
the Dred Scott decision in the Supreme Court, which 
made the nation realize that the slave power had at 
last reached the fountain of Federal justice; and 
finally the execution of John Brown, for his wild raid 
into Virginia, to invite the slaves to rally to the 
standard of freedom which he unfurled: — all these 
events tend to illustrate and confirm Lincoln's con- 
tention that the nation could not permanently con- 
tinue half slave and half free, but must become all 
one thing or all the other. When John Brown lay 
under sentence of death he declared that now he 
was sure that slavery must be wiped out in blood; 



98 Abraham Lincoln 

but neither he nor his executioners dreamt that 
within four years a milhon soldiers would be march- 
ing across the cotmtry for its final extirpation, to the 
music of the war-song of the great conflict: 

" John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave, 
But his soiil is marching on." 

And now, at the age of fifty-one, this child of the 
wilderness, this farm laborer, rail-splitter, flatboat- 
man, this surveyor, lawyer, orator, statesman, and 
patriot, found himself elected by the great party 
which was pledged to prevent at all hazards the 
further extension of slavery, as the chief magistrate 
of the Republic, bound to carry out that purpose, to 
be the leader and ruler of the nation in its most try- 
ing hour. 

Those who believe that there is a living Provi- 
dence that overrules and conducts the affairs of 
nations, find in the elevation of this plain man to 
this extraordinary fortune and to this great duty, 
which he so fitly discharged, a signal vindication of 
their faith. Perhaps to this philosophical institu- 
tion the judgment of our philosopher Emerson will 
commend itself as a just estimate of Lincoln's his- 
torical place : 

" His occupying the chair of state was a triumph of 
the good sense of mankind and of the public con- 
science. He grew according to the need; his miind 
mastered the problem of the day: and as the prob- 
lem grew, so did his comprehension of it. In the 
war there was no place for holiday magistrate, nor 
fair-weather sailor. The new pilot was hurried to 



Joseph H. Choate 99 

the helm in a tornado. In four years — ^four years 
of battle days — ^his endurance, his fertility of re- 
source, his magnanimity, were sorely tried, and 
never found wanting. There, by his courage, his 
justice, his even temper, his fertile counsel, his 
humanity, he stood a heroic figure in the centre of a 
heroic epoch. He is the true history of the Ameri- 
can people in his time, the true representative of this 
continent — father of his country, the pulse of twenty 
millions throbbing in his heart, the thought of their 
mind articulated in his tongue." 

He was born great, as distinguished from those 
who achieve greatness or have it thrust upon them, 
and his inherent capacity, mental, moral, and 
physical, having been recognized by the educated 
intelligence of a free people, they happily chose him 
for their ruler in a day of deadly peril. 

It is now forty years since I first saw and heard 
Abraham Lincoln, but the impression which he left 
on my mind is ineffaceable. After his great suc- 
cesses in the West he came to New York to make 
a political address. He appeared in every sense of 
the word like one of the plain people among whom 
he loved to be counted. At first sight there was 
nothing impressive or imposing about him — except 
that his great stature singled him out from the crowd : 
his clothes hung awkwardly on his giant frame ; his 
face was of a dark pallor, without the slightest tinge 
of color; his seamed and rugged features bore the 
furrows of hardship and struggle; his deep-set eyes 
looked sad and anxious; his countenance in repose 
gave little evidence of that brain power which had 



icx) Abraham Lincoln 

raised him from the lowest to the highest station 
among his countrymen; as he talked to me before 
the meeting, he seemed ill at ease, with that sort of 
apprehension which a young man might feel before 
presenting himself to a new and strange audience, 
whose critical disposition he dreaded. It was a 
great audience, including all the noted men — all the 
learned and cultured — of his party in New York: 
editors, clergymen, statesmen, lawyers, merchants, 
critics. They were all very curious to hear him. 
His fame as a powerful speaker had preceded him, 
and exaggerated rumor of his wit — the worst fore- 
runner of an orator — ^had reached the East. When 
Mr. Bryant presented him, on the high platform of 
the Cooper Institute, a vast sea of eager upturned 
faces greeted him, full of intense curiosity to see 
what this rude child of the people was like. He was 
equal to the occasion. When he spoke he was trans- 
formed; his eye kindled, his voice rang, his face 
shone and seemed to light up the whole assembly. 
For an hour and a half he held his audience in the 
hollow of his hand. His style of speech and manner 
of delivery were severely simple. What Lowell 
called "the grand simplicities of the Bible," with 
which he was so familiar, were reflected in his dis- 
course. With no attempt at ornament or rhetoric, 
without parade or pretence, he spoke straight to the 
point. If any came expecting the turgid eloquence 
or the ribaldry of the frontier, they must have been 
startled at the earnest and sincere purity of his 
utterances. It was marvellous to see how this 
untutored man, by mere self -discipline and the 



Joseph H. Choate loi 

chastening of his own spirit, had outgrown all 
meretricious arts, and found his own way to the 
grandeur and strength of absolute simplicity. 

He spoke upon the theme which he had mastered 
so thoroughly. He demonstrated by copious his- 
torical proofs and masterly logic that the fathers 
who created the Constitution in order to form a 
more perfect imion, to establish justice, and to secure 
the blessings of liberty to themselves and their 
posterity, intended to empower the Federal Govern- 
ment to exclude slavery from the Territories. In the 
kindliest spirit he protested against the avowed 
threat of the Southern States to destroy the Union if, 
in order to secure freedom in those vast regions out 
of which future States were to be carved, a Republi- 
can President were elected. He closed with an ap- 
peal to his audience, spoken with all the fire of his 
aroused and kindling conscience, with a full outpour- 
ing of his love of justice and liberty, to maintain their 
political purpose on that lofty and unassailable issue 
of right and wrong which alone could justify it, and 
not to be intimidated from their high resolve and 
sacred duty by any threats of destruction to the 
government or of ruin to themselves. He concluded 
with this telling sentence, which drove the whole 
argument home to all our hearts: "Let us have 
faith that right makes might, and in that faith let us 
to the end dare to do our duty as we understand it." 
That night the great hall, and the next day the 
whole city, rang with delighted applause and con- 
gratulations, and he who had come as a stranger 
departed with the laurels of great triumph. 



I02 Abraham Lincoln 

Alas! in five years from that exulting night I saw 
him again, for the last time, in the same city, borne in 
his cofhn through its draped streets. With tears and 
lamentations a heart-broken people accompanied 
him from Washington, the scene of his martyrdom, 
to his last resting-place in the young city of the West 
where he had worked his way to fame. 

Never was a new ruler in a more desperate plight 
than Lincoln when he entered office on the fourth of 
March, 1861, four months after his election, and took 
his oath to support the Constitution and the Union. 
The intervening time had been busily employed by 
the Southern States in carrying out their threat of 
disunion in the event of his election. As soon as the 
fact was ascertained, seven of them had seceded and 
had seized upon the forts, arsenals, navy yards, and 
other public property of the United States within 
their boundaries, and were making every prepara- 
tion for war. In the meantime the retiring Presi- 
dent, who had been elected by the slave power, and 
who thought the seceding States could not lawfully 
be coerced, had done absolutely nothing. Lincoln 
found himself, by the Constitution, Commander-in- 
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, 
but with only a remnant of either at hand. Each 
was to be created on a great scale out of the un- 
known resources of a nation untried in war. 

In his mild and conciliatory inaugural address, 
while appealing to the seceding States to return to 
their allegiance, he avowed his purpose to keep the 
solemn oath he had taken that day, to see that the 
laws of the Union were faithfully executed, and to 



Joseph H. Choate 103 

use the troops to recover the forts, navy yards, and 
other property belonging to the government. It is 
probable, however, that neither side actually realized 
that war was inevitable, and that the other was 
determined to fight, until the assault on Fort Sumter 
presented the South as the first aggressor and roused 
the North to use every possible resource to main- 
tain the government and the imperilled Union, and to 
vindicate the supremacy of the flag over every inch 
of the territory of the United States. The fact that 
Lincoln's first proclamation called for only 75,000 
troops, to serve for three months, shows how inade- 
quate was even his idea of what the future had in 
store. But from that moment Lincoln and his loyal 
supporters never faltered in their purpose. They 
knew they could win, that it was their duty to win, 
and that for America the whole hope of the future 
depended upon their winning; for now by the acts 
of the seceding States the issue of the election — to 
secure or prevent the extension of slavery — stood 
transformed into a struggle to preserve or to destroy 
the Union. 

We cannot follow this contest. You know its 
gigantic proportions ; that it lasted four years instead 
of three months; that in its progress, instead of 
75,000 men, more than 2,000,000 were enrolled on 
the side of the government alone; that the aggre- 
gate cost and loss to the nation approximated to 
1,000,000,000 pounds sterling, and that not less 
than 300,000 brave and precious lives were sacrificed 
on each side. History has recorded how Lincoln 
bore himself during these four frightful years; that 



I04 Abraham Lincoln 

he was the real President, the responsible and actual 
head of the government, through it all; that he 
listened to all advice, heard all parties, and then, 
always realizing his responsibility to God and the 
nation, decided every great executive question for 
himself. His absolute honesty had become pro- 
verbial long before he was President. *' Honest Abe 
Lincoln " was the name by which he had been known 
for years. His every act attested it. 

In all the grandeur of the vast power that he 
wielded, he never ceased to be one of the plain people, 
as he always called them, never lost or impaired his 
perfect sympathy with them, was always in perfect 
touch with them and open to their appeals ; and here 
lay the very secret of his personality and of his power, 
for the people in turn gave him their absolute con- 
fidence. His courage, his fortitude, his patience, his 
hopefulness, were sorely tried but never exhausted. 

He was true as steel to his generals, but had fre- 
quent occasion to change them, as he found them in- 
adequate. This serious and painful duty rested 
wholly upon him, and was perhaps his most import- 
ant function as Commander-in-Chief; but when, at 
last, he recognized in General Grant the master of 
the situation, the man who could and would bring 
the war to a triumphant end, he gave it all over to 
him and upheld him with all his might. Amid all 
the pressure and distress that the burdens of office 
brought upon him, his unfailing sense of humor 
saved him; probably it made it possible for him to 
live under the burden. He had always been the 
great story-teller of the West, and he used and culti- 



Joseph H. Choate 105 

vated this faculty to reheve the weight of the load 
he bore. 

It enabled him to keep the wonderful record of 
never having lost his temper, no matter what agony 
he had to bear. A whole night might be spent in 
recounting the stories of his wit, humor, and harm- 
less sarcasm. But I will recall only two of his say- 
ings, both about General Grant, who always found 
plenty of enemies and critics to urge the President 
to oust him from his command. One, I am sure, 
will interest all Scotchmen. They repeated with 
malicious intent the gossip that Grant drank. 
' ' What does he drink ? ' ' asked Lincoln. ' ' Whiskey, ' ' 
was, of course, the answer; doubtless you can guess 
the brand. "Well," said the President, "just find 
out what particular kind he uses and I '11 send a 
barrel to each of my other generals." The other 
must be as pleasing to the British as to the American 
ear. When pressed again on other grounds to get 
rid of Grant, he declared, "I can't spare that man, 
he fights!" 

He was tender-hearted to a fault, and never could 
resist the appeals of wives and mothers of soldiers 
who had got into trouble and were under sentence 
of death for their offences. His Secretary of War 
and other officials complained that they never could 
get deserters shot. As surely as the women of the 
culprit's family could get at him he always gave way. 
Certainly you will all appreciate his exquisite sym- 
pathy with the suffering relatives of those who had 
fallen in battle. His heart bled with theirs. Never 
was there a more gentle and tender utterance than 



io6 Abraham Lincoln 

his letter to a mother who had given all her sons to 
her country, written at a time when the angel of 
death had visited almost every household in the land, 
and was already hovering over him. 

"I have been shown," he says, "in the files of 
the War Department a statement that you are the 
mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the 
field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must 
be any words of mine which should attempt to be- 
guile you from your grief for a loss so overwhelming 
— ^but I cannot refrain from tendering to you the 
consolation which may be found in the thanks of 
the Republic they died to save. I pray that our 
Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your 
bereavement and leave you only the cherished 
memory of the loved and the lost, and the solemn 
pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a 
sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." 

Hardly could your illustrious sovereign, from the 
depths of her queenly and womanly heart, have 
spoken words more touching and tender to soothe 
the stricken mothers of her own soldiers. 

The Emancipation Proclamation, with which Mr. 
Lincoln delighted the country and the world on the 
first of January, 1863, will doubtless secure for him 
a foremost place in history among the philanthro- 
pists and benefactors of the race, as it rescued, from 
hopeless and degrading slavery, so many millions 
of his fellow-beings described in the law and exist- 
ing in fact as "chattels-personal, in the hands of 
their owners and possessors, to all intents, construc- 
tions, and purposes whatsoever." Rarely does the 



Joseph H. Choate 107 

happy fortune come to one man to render such a ser- 
vice to his kind — to proclaim hberty throughout the 
land unto all the inhabitants thereof. 

Ideas rule the world, and never was there a more 
signal instance of this triumph of an idea than here. 
William Lloyd Garrison, who thirty years before 
had begun his crusade for the abolition of slavery, 
and had lived to see this glorious and unexpected 
consummation of the hopeless cause to which he had 
devoted his life, well described the proclamation as 
a "great historic event, sublime in its magnitude, 
momentous and beneficent in its far-reaching con- 
sequences, and eminently just and right alike to the 
oppressor and the oppressed." 

Lincoln had always been heart and soul opposed 
to slavery. Tradition says that on the trip on the 
flatboat to New Orleans he formed his first and last 
opinion of slavery at the sight of negroes chained 
and scourged, and that then and there the iron en- 
tered into his soul. No boy could grow to man- 
hood in those days as a poor white in Kentucky 
and Indiana, in close contact with slavery or in its 
neighborhood, without a growing consciousness of its 
blighting effects on free labor, as well as of its frightful 
injustice and cruelty. In the Legislature of Illinois, 
where the public sentiment was all for upholding the 
institution and violently against every movement 
for its abolition or restriction, upon the passage of 
resolutions to that effect he had the courage with one 
companion to put on record his protest, "believing 
that the institution of slavery is founded both in 
injustice and bad policy." No great demonstration 



io8 Abraham Lincoln 

of courage, you will say ; but that was at a time when 
Garrison, for his abolition utterances, had been 
dragged by an angry mob through the streets of 
Boston with a rope around his body, and in the very 
year that Love joy in the same State of Illinois was 
slain by rioters while defending his press, from which 
he had printed antislavery appeals. 

In Congress he brought in a bill for gradual aboli- 
tion in the District of Columbia, with compensation 
to the owners, — ^for until they raised treasonable 
hands against the life of the nation he always main- 
tained that the property of the slaveholders, into 
which they had come by two centuries of descent, 
without fault on their part, ought not to be taken 
away from them without just compensation. He 
used to say that, one way or another, he had voted 
forty-two times for the Wilmot Proviso, which Mr. 
Wilmot of Pennsylvania moved as an addition to 
every bill which affected United States territory, — 
"that neither slavery nor involuntary servitude 
shall ever exist in any part of the said territory," — 
and it is evident that his condemnation of the system, 
on moral grounds as a crime against the human race, 
and on political grounds as a cancer that was sapping 
the vitals of the nation, and must master its whole 
being or be itself extirpated, grew steadily upon him 
until it culminated in his great speeches in the 
Illinois debate. 

By the mere election of Lincoln to the Presidency, 
the further extension of slavery into the Territories 
was rendered forever impossible — Vox populi, vox 
Dei. Revolutions never go backward, and when 



Joseph H. Choate lOQ 

founded on a great moral sentiment stirring the 
heart of an indignant people their edicts are irresist- 
ible and final. Had the slave power acquiesced in 
that election, had the Southern States remained 
under the Constitution and within the Union, and 
relied upon their constitutional and legal rights, their 
favorite institution, immoral as it was, blighting and 
fatal as it was, might have endured for another 
century. The great party that had elected him, 
unalterably determined against its extension, was 
nevertheless pledged not to interfere with its con- 
tinuance in the States where it already existed. Of 
course, when new regions were forever closed against 
it, from its very nature it must have begun to shrink 
and to dwindle; and probably gradual and com- 
pensated emancipation, which appealed very strongly 
to the new President's sense of justice and expedi- 
ency, would, in the progress of time, by a reversion 
to the ideas of the founders of the Republic, have 
found a safe outlet for both masters and slaves. 
But whom the gods wish to destroy they first make 
mad, and when seven States, afterwards increased 
to eleven, openly seceded from the Union, when they 
declared and began the war upon the nation, and 
challenged its mighty power to the desperate and 
protracted struggle for its life, and for the main- 
tenance of its authority as a nation over its territory, 
they gave to Lincoln and to freedom the sublime 
opportunity of history. 

In his first inaugural address, when as yet not a 
drop of precious blood had been shed, while he held 
out to them the olive branch in one hand, in the 



no Abraham Lincoln 

other he presented the guarantees of the Constitu- 
tion, and after reciting the emphatic resolution of 
the convention that nominated him, that the main- 
tenance inviolate of the "rights of the States, and 
especially the right of each State to order and control 
its own domestic institutions according to its own 
judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of 
power on which the perfection and endurance of our 
political fabric depend," he reiterated this sentiment, 
and declared, with no mental reservation, "that all 
the protection which, consistently with the Constitu- 
tion and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully 
given to all the States when lawfully demanded for 
whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to 
another. ' ' 

When, however, these magnanimous overtures for 
peace and reunion were rejected; when the seceding 
States defied the Constitution and every clause and 
principle of it ; when they persisted in staying out of 
the Union from which they had seceded, and pro- 
ceeded to carve out of its territory a new and hostile 
empire based on slavery; when they flew at the 
throat of the nation and plunged it into the bloodiest 
war of the nineteenth century — ^the tables were 
turned, and the belief gradually came to the mind 
of the President that if the Rebellion was not soon 
subdued by force of arms, if the war must be fought 
out to the bitter end, then to reach that end the 
salvation of the nation itself might require the 
destruction of slavery wherever it existed; that if 
the war was to continue on one side for Disunion, 
for no other purpose than to preserve slavery, it must 



Joseph H. Choate m 

continue on the other side for the Union, to destroy 
slavery. 

As he said, "Events control me; I cannot control 
events," and as the dreadful war progressed and 
became more deadly and dangerous, the unalterable 
conviction was forced upon him that, in order that 
the frightful sacrifice of life and treasure on both 
sides might not be all in vain, it had become his duty 
as Commander-in-Chief of the Army, as a necessary 
war measure, to strike a. blow at the Rebellion which, 
all others failing, would inevitably lead to its anni- 
hilation, by annihilating the very thing for which it 
was contending. His own words are the best : 

"I understood that my oath to preserve the Con- 
stitution to the best of my ability imposed upon me 
the duty of preserving by every indispensable means 
that government — ^that nation — of which that Con- 
stitution was the organic law. Was it possible to 
lose the nation and yet preserve the Constitution? 
By general law, life and limb must be protected, 
yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; 
but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I 
felt that measures otherwise unconstitutional might 
become lawful by becoming indispensable to the pre- 
servation of the Constitution through the preserva- 
tion of the nation. Right or wrong, I assumed this 
ground and now avow it. I could not feel that to 
the best of my ability I had ever tried to preserve 
the Constitution if to save slavery or any minor 
matter I should permit the wreck of government, 
country, and Constitution all together." 

And so, at last, when in his judgment the indis- 



112 Abraham Lincoln 

pensable necessity had come, he struck the fatal 
blow, and signed the proclamation which has made 
his name immortal. By it, the President, as Com- 
mander-in-Chief in time of actual armed rebellion, 
and as a fit and necessary war measure for suppress- 
ing the rebellion, proclaimed all persons held as 
slaves in the States and parts of States then in 
rebellion to be thenceforward free, and declared 
that the executive, with the army and navy, would 
recognize and maintain their freedom. 

In the other great steps of the government, which 
led to the triumphant prosecution of the war, he 
necessarily shared the responsibility and the credit 
with the great statesmen who stayed up his hands in 
his cabinet, — ^with Seward, Chase and Stanton, and 
the rest, — and with his generals and admirals, his 
soldiers and sailors, but this great act was abso- 
lutely his own. The conception and execution were 
exclusively his. He laid it before his cabinet as a 
measure on which his mind was made up and could 
not be changed, asking them only for suggestions 
as to details. He chose the time and the circum- 
stances under which the Emancipation should be 
proclaimed and when it should take effect. 

It came not an hour too soon ; but public opinion 
in the North would not have sustained it earlier. 
In the first eighteen months of the war its ravages 
had extended from the Atlantic to beyond the 
Mississippi. Many victories in the West had been 
balanced and paralyzed by inaction and disasters in 
Virginia, only partially redeemed by the bloody and 
indecisive battle of Antietam; a reaction had set in 



Joseph H. Choate 113 

from the general enthusiasm which had swept the 
Northern States after the assault upon Sumter. It 
could not truly be said that they had lost heart, but 
faction was raising its head. Heard through the 
land like the blast of a bugle, the proclamation 
rallied the patriotism of the country to fresh sacri- 
fices and renewed ardor. It was a step that could 
not be revoked. It relieved the conscience of the 
nation from an incubus that had oppressed it from 
its birth. The United States were rescued from the 
false predicament in which they had been from the 
beginning, and the great popular heart leaped with 
new enthusiasm for "Liberty and Union, hence- 
forth and forever, one and inseparable." It brought 
not only moral but material support to the cause of 
the government, for within two years 120,000 colored 
troops were enlisted in the military service and fol- 
lowing the national flag, supported by all the loyalty 
of the North, and led by its choicest spirits. One 
mother said, when her son was offered the command 
of the first colored regiment, " If he accepts it I shall 
be as proud as if I had heard that he was shot." He 
was shot heading a gallant charge of his regiment. 
The Confederates replied to a request of his friends 
for his body that they had "buried him under a 
layer of his niggers"; but that mother has lived to 
enjoy thirty-six years of his glory, and Boston has 
erected its noblest monument to his memory. 

The effect of the proclamation upon the actual 
progress of the war was not immediate, but wherever 
the Federal armies advanced they carried freedom 
with them, and when the summer came round the 

VOL. I. — 8. 



114 Abraham Lincoln 

new spirit and force which had animated the heart of 
the government and people were manifest. In the 
first week of July the decisive battle of Gettysburg 
turned the tide of war, and the fall of Vicksburg made 
the great river free from its source to the Gulf. 

On foreign nations the influence of the proclama- 
tion and of these new victories was of great im- 
portance. In those days, when there was no cable, 
it was not easy for foreign observers to appreciate 
what was really going on ; they could not see clearly 
the true state of affairs, as in the last year of the 
nineteenth century we have been able, by our new 
electric vision, to watch every event at the antipodes 
and observe its effect. The Rebel emissaries, sent 
over to solicit intervention, spared no pains to im- 
press upon the minds of public and private men and 
upon the press their own views of the character of 
the contest. The prospects of the Confederacy were 
always better abroad than at home. The stock 
markets of the world gambled upon its chances, and 
its bonds at one time were high in favor. 

Such ideas as these were seriously held: that the 
North was fighting for empire and the South for in- 
dependence; that the Southern States, instead of 
being the grossest oligarchies, essentially despotisms, 
founded on the right of one man to appropriate the 
fruit of other men's toil and to exclude them from 
equal rights, were real republics, feebler to be sure 
than their Northern rivals, but representing the same 
idea of freedom, and that the mighty strength of the 
nation was being put forth to crush them; that 
Jefferson Davis and the Southern leaders had created 



Joseph H. Choate 115 

a nation ; that the repubUcan experiment had failed 
and the Union had ceased to exist. But the crown- 
ing argument to foreign minds was that it was an 
utter impossibihty for the government to win in the 
contest ; that the success of the Southern States, so 
far as separation was concerned, was as certain as any 
event yet future and contingent could be; that the 
subjugation of the South by the North, even if it 
could be accomplished, would prove a calamity to 
the United States and the world, and especially 
calamitous to the negro race; and that such a 
victory would necessarily leave the people of the 
South for many generations cherishing deadly 
hostility against the government and the North, and 
plotting always to recover their independence. 

When Lincoln issued his proclamation he knew 
that all these ideas were founded in error; that the 
national resources were inexhaustible; that the 
government could and would win, and that if slavery 
were once finally disposed of, the only cause of 
difference being out of the way, the North and South 
would come together again, and by and by be as 
good friends as ever. In many quarters abroad the 
proclamation was welcomed with enthusiasm by the 
friends of America; but I think the demonstrations 
in its favor that brought more gladness to Lincoln's 
heart than any other were the meetings held in the 
manufacturing centres, by the very operatives upon 
whom the war bore the hardest, expressing the most 
enthusiastic sympathy with the proclamation, while 
they bore with heroic fortitude the grievous pri- 
vations which the war entailed upon them. Mr. 



ii6 Abraham Lincoln 

Lincoln's expectation when he announced to the 
world that all slaves in all States then in rebellion were 
set free must have been that the avowed position of 
his government, that the continuance of the war now 
meant the annihilation of slavery, would make inter- 
vention impossible for any foreign nation whose peo- 
ple were lovers of liberty — and so the result proved. 
The growth and development of Lincoln's mental 
power and moral force, of his intense and magnetic 
personality, after the vast responsibilities of govern- 
ment were thrown upon him at the age of fifty-two, 
furnish a rare and striking illustration of the marvel- 
lous capacity and adaptability of the human intellect 
— of the sound mind in the sound body. He came 
to the discharge of the great duties of the Presidency 
with absolutely no experience in the administration 
of government, or of the vastly varied and compli- 
cated questions of foreign and domestic policy which 
immediately arose, and continued to press upon him 
during the rest of his life; but he mastered each as 
it came, apparently with the facility of a trained and 
experienced ruler. As Clarendon said of Cromwell, 
"His parts seemed to be raised by the demands of 
great station." His life through it all was one of 
intense labor, anxiety, and distress, without one hour 
of peaceful repose from first to last. But he rose to 
every occasion. He led public opinion, but did not 
march so far in advance of it as to fail of its effective 
support in every great emergency. He knew the 
heart and thought of the people, as no man not in 
constant and absolute sympathy with them could 
have known it, and so holding their confidence, he 



Joseph H. Choate 117 

triumphed through and with them. Not only was 
there this steady growth of intellect, but the infinite 
delicacy of his nature and its capacity for refinement 
developed also, as exhibited in the purity and per- 
fection of his language and style of speech. The 
rough backwoodsman, who had never seen the inside 
of a university, became in the end, by self -training 
and the exercise of his own powers of mind, heart, 
and soul, a master of style, and some of his utterances 
will rank with the best, the most perfectly adapted 
to the occasion which produced them. 

Have you time to listen to his two-minutes speech 
at Gettysburg, at the dedication of the Soldiers' 
Cemetery ? His whole soul was in it : 

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged 
in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or 
any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 
endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that 
war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that 
field as a final resting-place for those who here gave 
their lives that that nation might live. It is al- 
together fitting and proper that we should do this. 
But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate — ^we cannot 
consecrate — we cannot hallow this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have 
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or 
detract. The world will little note, nor long remem- 
ber, what we say here — ^but it can never forget what 
they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, to be 



ii8 Abraham Lincoln 

dedicated here to the unfinished work which they 
who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us — that from these honored 
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for 
which they gave the last full measure of devotion — 
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain — that this nation under God shall 
have a new birth of freedom — and that government 
of the people, by the people, and for the people shall 
not perish from the earth." 

He lived to see his work indorsed by an overwhelm- 
ing majority of his countrymen. In his second in- 
augural address, pronounced just forty days before 
his death, there is a single passage which well dis- 
plays his indomitable will and at the same time his 
deep religious feeling, his sublime charity to the 
enemies of his country, and his broad and catholic 
humanity : 

" If we shall suppose that American slavery is one 
of those offences which in the Providence of God 
must needs come, but which, having continued 
through the appointed time. He now wills to remove, 
and that He gives to both North and South this 
terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the 
offence came, shall we discern therein any departure 
from those divine attributes which the believers in a 
living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we 
hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge 
of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills 
that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 



Joseph H. Choate 119 

quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of 
blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another 
drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said, ' the judgments of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the 
right — ^let us strive on to finish the work we are in: 
to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his 
orphan — ^to do all which may achieve and cherish a 
just and lasting peace among ourselves, and with all 
nations." 

His prayer was answered. The forty days of life 
that remained to him were crowned with great 
historic events. He lived to see his Proclamation of 
Emancipation embodied in an amendment of the 
Constitution, adopted by Congress, and submitted to 
the States for ratification. The mighty scourge of 
war did speedily pass away, for it was given him to 
witness the surrender of the Rebel army and the fall 
of their capital, and the starry flag that he loved 
waving in triumph over the national soil. When 
he died by the madman's hand in the supreme hour 
of victory, the vanquished lost their best friend, and 
the human race one of its noblest examples ; and all 
the friends of freedom and justice, in whose cause he 
lived and died, joined hands as mourners at his grave. 



THE WRITINGS OF 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

I 832-1 843 



121 



THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



ADDRESS TO THE PEOPLE OF SANGAMON COUNTY. 

March 9, 1832. 

Fellow-Citizens :— Having become a candidate for 
the honorable office of one of your Representatives 
in the next General Assembly of this State, in accord- 
ance with an established custom and the principles 
of true Republicanism it becomes my duty to make 
known to you, the people whom I propose to repre- 
sent, my sentiments with regard to local affairs. 

Time and experience have verified to a demonstra- 
tion the public utility of internal improvements. 
That the poorest and most thinly populated coun- 
tries would be greatly benefited by the opening of 
good roads, and in the clearing of navigable streams 
within their limits, is what no person will deny. 
Yet it is folly to undertake works of this or any other 
kind without first knowing that we are able to finish 
them, — as half -finished work generally proves to be 
labor lost. There cannot justly be any objection to 
having railroads and canals, any more than to other 
good things, provided they cost nothing. The only 
objection is to paying for them; and the objection 
arises from the want of ability to pay. 

With respect to the County of Sangamon, some 

123 



124 The Writings of 

more easy means of communication than it now 
possesses, for the purpose of facihtating the task of 
exporting the surplus products of its fertile soil, and 
importing necessary articles from abroad, are in- 
dispensably necessary. A meeting has been held of 
the citizens of Jacksonville and the adjacent country, 
for the purpose of deliberating and inquiring into the 
expediency of constructing a railroad from some 
eligible point on the Illinois River, through the town 
of Jacksonville, in Morgan County, to the town of 
Springfield, in Sangamon County. This is, indeed, 
a very desirable object. No other improvement 
that reason will justify us in hoping for can equal in 
utility the railroad. It is a never-failing source of 
communication between places of business remotely 
situated from each other. Upon the railroad the 
regular progress of commercial intercourse is not 
interrupted by either high or low water, or freezing 
weather, which are the principal difficulties that 
render our future hopes of water communication 
precarious and uncertain. 

Yet, however desirable an object the construction 
of a railroad through our country may be, however 
high our imaginations may be heated at thoughts of 
it, — ^there is always a heart- appalling shock accom- 
panying the amount of its cost, which forces us to 
shrink from our pleasing anticipations. The prob- 
able cost of this contemplated railroad is estimated 
at $290,000; the bare statement of which, in my 
opinion, is sufficient to justify the belief that the 
improvement of the Sangamon River is an object 
much better suited to our infant resources. 



Abraham Lincoln 125 

Respecting this view, I think I may say, without 
the fear of being contradicted, that its navigation 
may be rendered completely practicable as high as 
the mouth of the South Fork, or probably higher, 
to vessels of from twenty-five to thirty tons burden, 
for at least one half of all common years, and to 
vessels of much greater burden a part of the time. 
From my peculiar circumstances, it is probable that 
for the last twelve months I have given as particular 
attention to the stage of the water in this river as 
any other person in the country. In the month of 
March, 1831, in company with others, I commenced 
the building of a flatboat on the Sangamon, and 
finished and took her out in the course of the spring. 
Since that time I have been concerned in the mill 
at New Salem. These circumstances are sufficient 
evidence that I have not been very inattentive to the 
stages of the water. The time at which we crossed 
the mill-dam being in the last days of April, the 
water was lower than it had been since the breaking 
of winter in February, or than it was for several 
weeks after. The principal difficulties we encoun- 
tered in descending the river were from the drifted 
timber, which obstructions all know are not difficult 
to be removed. Knowing almost precisely the height 
of water at that time, I believe I am safe in saying 
that it has as often been higher as lower since. 

From this view of the subject it appears that my 
calculations with regard to the navigation of the 
Sangamon cannot but be founded in reason; but, 
whatever may be its natural advantages, certain it 
is that it never can be practically useful to any great 



126 The Writings of 

extent without being greatly improved by art. The 
drifted timber, as I have before mentioned, is the 
most formidable barrier to this object. Of all parts 
of this river, none will require so much labor in pro- 
portion to make it navigable as the last thirty or 
thirty-five miles; and going with the meanderings 
of the channel, when we are this distance above its 
mouth we are only between twelve and eighteen 
miles above Beards town in something near a straight 
direction ; and this route is upon such low ground as 
to retain water in many places during the season, 
and in all parts such as to draw two thirds or three 
fourths of the river water at all high stages. 

This route is on prairie-land the whole distance, 
so that it appears to me, by removing the turf a 
sufficient width, and damming up the old channel, 
the whole river in a short time would wash its way 
through, thereby curtailing the distance and increas- 
ing the velocity of the current very considerably, 
while there would be no timber on the banks to ob- 
struct its navigation in future; and being nearly 
straight, the timber which might float in at the head 
would be apt to go clear through. There are also 
many places above this where the river, in its zigzag 
course, forms such complete peninsulas as to be 
easier to cut at the necks than to remove the obstruc- 
tions from the bends, which, if done, would also lessen 
the distance. 

What the cost of this work would be, I am unable 
to say. It is probable, however, that it would not 
be greater than is common to streams of the same 
length. Finally, I believe the improvement of the 



Abraham Lincoln 127 

Sangamon River to be vastly important and highly 
desirable to the people of the county ; and, if elected, 
any measure in the Legislature having this for its 
object, which may appear judicious, will meet my 
approbation and receive my support. 

It appears that the practice of loaning money at 
exorbitant rates of interest has already been opened 
as a field for discussion; so I suppose I may enter 
upon it without claiming the honor or risking the 
danger which may await its first explorer. It seems 
as though we are never to have an end to this baneful 
and corroding system, acting almost as prejudicially 
to the general interests of the community as a direct 
tax of several thousand dollars annually laid on 
each county for the benefit of a few individuals only, 
unless there be a law made fixing the limits of usury. 
A law for this purpose, I am of opinion, may be 
made without materially injuring any class of people. 
In cases of extreme necessity, there could always be 
means found to cheat the law; while in all other 
cases it would have its intended effect. I would 
favor the passage of a law on this subject which 
might not be very easily evaded. Let it be such 
that the labor and difficulty of evading it could only 
be justified in cases of greatest necessity. 

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to 
dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only 
say that I view it as the most important subject 
which we as a people can be engaged in. That 
every man may receive at least a moderate educa- 
tion, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of 
his own and other countries, by which he may duly 



128 The Writings of 

appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears 
to be an object of vital importance, even on this 
account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and 
satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read 
the Scriptures, and other works both of a religious 
and moral nature, for themselves. 

For my part, I desire to see the time when educa- 
tion — and by its means, morality, sobriety, enter- 
prise, and industry — shall become much more 
general than at present, and should be gratified to 
have it in my power to contribute something to the 
advancement of any measure which might have a 
tendency to accelerate that happy period. 

With regard to existing laws, some alterations are 
thought to be necessary. Many respectable men 
have suggested that our estray laws, the law respect- 
ing the issuing of executions, the road law, and some 
others, are deficient in their present form, and re- 
quire alterations. But, considering the great prob- 
ability that the framers of those laws were wiser 
than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them, 
unless they were first attacked by others; in which 
case I should feel it both a privilege and a duty to 
take that stand which, in my view, might tend most 
to the advancement of justice. 

But, fellow-citizens, I shall conclude. Consider- 
ing the great degree of modesty which should always 
attend youth, it is probable I have already been 
more presuming than becomes me. However, upon 
the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken 
as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any 
or all of them ; but, holding it a sound maxim that it 



Abraham Lincoln 129 

is better only sometimes to be right than at all times 
to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be 
erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them. 

Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. 
Whether it be true or not, I can say, for one, that I 
have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed 
of my fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of 
their esteem. How far I shall succeed in gratifying 
this ambition is yet to be developed. I am young, 
and unknown to many of you. I was born, and have 
ever remained, in the most humble walks of life. I 
have no wealthy or popular relations or friends to 
recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon 
the independent voters of the county; and, if elected, 
they will have conferred a favor upon me for which 
I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. 
But, if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to 
keep me in the background, I have been too familiar 
with disappointments to be very much chagrined. 
Your friend and fellow-citizen, 

A. Lincoln. 

New Salem, March 9, 1832. 



TO E. C. BLANKENSHIP. 

New Salem, Aug. 10, 1833. 

E. C. Blankenship. 

Dear Sir: — In regard to the time David Rankin 
served the enclosed discharge shows correctly — as 
well as I can recollect — Shaving no writing to refer. 
The transfer of Rankin from my company occurred 
as follows: Rankin having lost his horse at Dixon's 



130 The Writings of 

ferry and having acquaintance in one of the foot 
companies who were going down the river was de- 
sirous to go with them, and one Gahshen being an 
acquaintance of mine and belonging to the company 
in which Rankin wished to go wished to leave it and 
join mine, this being the case it was agreed that they 
should exchange places and answer to each other's 
names — as it was expected we all would be dis- 
charged in very few days. As to a blanket — I have 
no knowledge of Rankin ever getting any. The 
above embraces all the facts now in my recollection 
which are pertinent to the case. 

I shall take pleasure in giving any further informa- 
tion in my power should you call on me. 

Your friend, 
A. Lincoln. 

(Original owned by DeWitt C. Sprague, Washings 
ton, D. C.) 



to mr. spears. 

Mr. Spears: 

At your request I send you a receipt for the postage 
on your paper. I am somewhat surprised at your 
request. I will, however, comply with it. The law 
requires newspaper postage to be paid in advance, 
and now that I have waited a full year you choose to 
wound my feelings by insinuating that unless you 
get a receipt I will probably make you pay it again. 

Respectfully, 
A. Lincoln. 



Abraham Lincoln 131 

ANNOUNCEMENT OF POLITICAL VIEWS. 

New Salem, June 13, 1836. 

To THE Editor of the "Journal": — In your 
paper of last Saturday I see a communication, over 
the signature of "Many Voters," in which the candi- 
dates who are announced in the Journal are called 
upon to "show their hands." Agreed. Here's 
mine. 

I go for all sharing the privileges of the govern- 
ment who assist in bearing its burdens. Conse- 
quently, I go for admitting all whites to the right of 
suffrage who pay taxes or bear arms (by no means 
excluding females). 

If elected, I shall consider the whole people of 
Sangamon my constituents, as well those that oppose 
as those that support me. 

While acting as their representative, I shall be 
governed by their will on all subjects upon which I 
have the means of knowing what their will is; and 
upon all others I shall do what my own judgment 
teaches me will best advance their interests. Whether 
elected or not, I go for distributing the proceeds of 
the sales of the public lands to the several States, 
to enable our State, in common with others, to dig 
canals and construct railroads without borrowing 
money and paying the interest on it. 

If alive on the first Monday in November, I shall 
vote for Hugh L. White for President. 

Very respectfully, 

A. Lincoln. 



132 The Writings of 

TO ROBERT ALLEN. 

New Salem, June 21, 1836. 

Dear Colonel : — I am told that during my absence 
last week you passed through this place, and stated 
publicly that you were in possession of a fact or facts 
which, if known to the public, would entirely destroy 
the prospects of N. W. Edwards and myself at the 
ensuing election; but that, through favor to us, you 
should forbear to divulge them. No one has needed 
favors more than I, and, generally, few have been 
less unwilling to accept them ; but in this case favor 
to me would be injustice to the public, and therefore 
I must beg your pardon for declining it. That I 
once had the confidence of the people of Sangamon, is 
sufficiently evident; and if I have since done any- 
thing, either by design or misadventure, which if 
known would subject me to a forfeiture of that con- 
fidence, he that knows of that thing, and conceals it, 
is a traitor to his country's interest. 

I find myself wholly unable to form any conjecture 
of what fact or facts, real or supposed, you spoke; 
but my opinion of your veracity will not permit me 
for a moment to doubt that you at least believed 
what you said. I am flattered with the personal 
regard you manifested for me; but I do hope that, 
on more mature reflection, you will view the public 
interest as a paramount consideration, and there- 
fore determine to let the worst come. I here assure 
you that the candid statement of facts on your part, 
however low it may sink me, shall never break the 
tie of personal friendship between us. I wish an 



Abraham Lincoln 133 

answer to this, and you are at Hberty to publish both, 

if you choose. 

Very respectfully, 

Col. Robert Allen. A. Lincoln. 



TO MISS MARY OWENS. 

Vandalia, December 13, 1836. 

Mary: — I have been sick ever since my arrival, 
or I should have written sooner. It is but little 
difference, however, as I have very little even yet to 
write. And more, the longer I can avoid the morti- 
fication of looking in the post-office for your letter 
and not finding it, the better. You see I am mad 
about that old letter yet. I don't like very well to 
risk you again. I '11 try you once more, anyhow. 

The new State House is not yet finished, and con- 
sequently the Legislature is doing little or nothing. 
The governor delivered an inflammatory political 
message, and it is expected there will be some spar- 
ring between the parties about it as soon as the two 
Houses get to business. Taylor delivered up his 
petition for the new county to one of our members 
this morning. I am told he despairs of its success, 
on account of all the members from Morgan County 
opposing it. There are names enough on the 
petition, I think, to justify the members from our 
county in going for it; but if the members from 
Morgan oppose it, which they say they will, the 
chance will be bad. 

Our chance to take the seat of government to 



134 The Writings of 

Springfield is better than I expected. An internal- 
improvement convention was held here since we 
met, which recommended a loan of several millions 
of dollars, on the faith of the State, to construct rail- 
roads. Some of the Legislature are for it, and some 
against it; which has the majority I cannot tell. 
There is great strife and struggling for the office of 
the United States Senator here at this time. It is 
probable we shall ease their pains in a few days. 
The opposition men have no candidate of their own, 
and consequently they will smile as complacently at 
the angry snarl of the contending Van Buren candi- 
dates and their respective friends as the Christian 
does at Satan's rage. You recollect that I mentioned 
at the outset of this letter that I had been unwell. 
That is the fact, though I believe I am about well 
now; but that, with other things I cannot account 
for, have conspired, and have gotten my spirits so 
low that I feel that I would rather be any place in 
the world than here. I really cannot endure the 
thought of staying here ten weeks. Write back as 
soon as you get this, and, if possible, say something 
that will please me, for really I have not been pleased 
since I left you. This letter is so dry and stupid 
that I am ashamed to send it, but with my present 
feelings I cannot do any better. 

Give my best respects to Mr. and Mrs. Able and 
family. 

Your friend, 
Lincoln. 



Abraham Lincoln 135 

SPEECH IN ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 

January [?], 1837. 

Mr. Chairman: — Lest I should fall into the too 
common error of being mistaken in regard to which 
side I design to be upon, I shall make it my first care 
to remove all doubt on that point, by declaring that 
I am opposed to the resolution under consideration, 
in toto. Before I proceed to the body of the subject, 
I will further remark, that it is not without a con- 
siderable degree of apprehension that I venture to 
cross the track of the gentleman from Coles [Mr. 
Linder]. Indeed, I do not believe I could muster 
a sufficiency of courage to come in contact with that 
gentleman, were it not for the fact that he, some 
days since, most graciously condescended to assure 
us that he would never be found wasting ammunition 
on small game. On the same fortunate occasion, he 
further gave us to understand, that he regarded 
himself as being decidedly the superior of our common 
friend from Randolph [Mr. Shields] ; and feeling, as 
I really do, that I, to say the most of myself, am 
nothing more than the peer of our friend from 
Randolph, I shall regard the gentleman from Coles 
as decidedly my superior also, and consequently, in 
the course of what I shall have to say, whenever I 
shall have occasion to allude to that gentleman, I 
shall endeavor to adopt that kind of court language 
which I understand to be due to decided superiority. 
In one faculty, at least, there can be no dispute of the 
gentleman's superiority over me and most other men, 
and that is, the faculty of entangling a subject, so 



136 The Writings of 

that neither himself, or any other man, can find head 
or tail to it. Here he has introduced a resolution, 
embracing ninety-nine printed lines across common 
writing paper, and yet more than one half of his 
opening speech has been made upon subjects about 
which there is not one word said in his resolution. 

Though his resolution embraces nothing in regard 
to the constitutionality of the Bank, much of what 
he has said has been with a view to make the im- 
pression that it was unconstitutional in its inception. 
Now, although I am satisfied that an ample field 
may be found within the pale of the resolution, at 
least for small game, yet, as the gentleman has 
travelled out of it, I feel that I may, with all due 
humility, venture to follow him. The gentleman has 
discovered that some gentleman at Washington city 
has been upon the very eve of deciding our Bank 
unconstitutional, and that he would probably have 
completed his very authentic decision, had not some 
one of the Bank officers placed his hand upon his 
mouth, and begged him to withhold it. The fact 
that the individuals composing our Supreme Court 
have, in an official capacity, decided in favor of the 
constitutionality of the Bank, would, in my mind, 
seem a sufficient answer to this. It is a fact known 
to all, that the members of .the Supreme Court, 
together with the Governor, form a Council of Re- 
vision, and that this Council approved this Bank 
charter. I ask, then, if the extra-judicial decision — 
not quite but almost made by the gentleman at 
Washington, before whom, by the way, the question 
of the constitutionality of our Bank never has, nor 



Abraham Lincoln 137 

never can come — ^is to be taken as paramount to a 
decision officially made by that tribunal, by which, 
and which alone, the constitutionahty of the Bank 
can ever be settled? But, aside from this view of 
the subject, I would ask, if the committee which this 
resolution proposes to appoint are to examine into 
the constitutionality of the Bank? Are they to be 
clothed with power to send for persons and papers, 
for this object ? And after they have found the bank 
to be unconstitutional, and decided it so, how are 
they to enforce their decision? What will their 
decision amount to? They cannot compel the Bank 
to cease operations, or to change the course of its 
operations. What good, then, can their labors result 
in? Certainly none. 

The gentleman asks, if we, without an examina- 
tion, shall, by giving the State deposits to the Bank, 
and by taking the stock reserved for the State, 
legalize its former misconduct. Now I do not pre- 
tend to possess sufficient legal knowledge to decide 
whether a legislative enactment proposing to, and 
accepting from, the Bank, certain terms, would 
have the effect to legalize or wipe out its former 
errors, or not ; but I can assure the gentleman, if such 
should be the effect, he has already got behind the 
settlement of accounts; for it is well known to all, 
that the Legislature, at its last session, passed a 
supplemental Bank charter, which the Bank has 
since accepted, and which, according to his doctrine, 
has legalized all the alleged violations of its original 
charter in the distribution of its stock. 

I now proceed to the resolution. By examination 



138 The Writings of 

it will be found that the first thirty-three lines, 
being precisely one third of the whole, relate exclu- 
sively to the distribution of the stock by the com- 
missioners appointed by the State. Now, Sir, it is 
clear that no question can arise on this portion of the 
resolution, except a question between capitalists in 
regard to the ownership of stock. Some gentlemen 
have their stock in their hands, while others, who have 
more money than they know what to do with, want 
it; and this, and this alone, is the question, to settle 
which we are called on to squander thousands of the 
people's money. What interest, let me ask, have 
the people in the settlement of this question? 
What difference is it to them whether the stock is 
owned by Judge Smith or Sam Wiggins? If any 
gentleman be entitled to stock in the Bank, which 
he is kept out of possession of by others, let him 
assert his right in the Supreme Court, and let him 
or his antagonist, whichever may be found in the 
wrong, pay the costs of suit. It is an old maxim, 
and a very sound one, that he that dances should 
always pay the fiddler. Now, Sir, in the present 
case, if any gentlemen, whose m(7ney is a burden to 
them, choose to lead off a dance, I am decidedly op- 
posed to the people's money being used to pay the 
fiddler. No one can doubt that the examination 
proposed by this resolution must cost the State 
some ten or twelve thousand dollars ; and all this to 
settle a question in which the people have no interest, 
and about which they care nothing. These capital- 
ists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to 
fleece the people, and now that they have got into a 



Abraham Lincoln 139 

quarrel with themselves we are called upon to ap- 
propriate the people's money to settle the quarrel. 

I leave this part of the resolution and proceed to 
the remainder. It will be found that no charge in 
the remaining part of the resolution, if true, amounts 
to the violation of the Bank charter, except one, 
which I will notice in due time. It might seem quite 
sufficient to say no more upon any of these charges 
or insinuations than enough to show they are not 
violations of the charter; yet, as they are ingen- 
iously framed and handled, with a view to deceive 
and mislead, I will notice in their order all the most 
prominent of them. The first of these is in relation 
to a connection between our Bank and several bank- 
ing institutions in other States. Admitting this con- 
nection to exist, I should like to see the gentleman 
from Coles, or any other gentleman, undertake to 
show that there is any harm in it. What can there 
be in such a connection, that the people of Illinois 
are willing to pay their money to get a peep into? 
By a reference to the tenth section of the Bank 
charter, any gentleman can see that the framers of 
the act contemplated the holding of stock in the 
institutions of other corporations. Why, then, is it, 
when neither law nor justice forbids it, that we are 
asked to spend our time and money in inquiring into 
its truth? 

The next charge, in the order of time, is, that some 
officer, director, clerk or servant of the Bank, has 
been required to take an oath of secrecy in relation to 
the affairs of said Bank. Now, I do not know 
whether this be true or false — neither do I believe 



I40 The Writings of 

any honest man cares. I know that the seventh 
section of the charter expressly guarantees to the 
Bank the right of making, under certain restrictions, 
such by-laws as it may think fit ; and I further know 
that the requiring an oath of secrecy would not 
transcend those restrictions. What, then, if the 
Bank has chosen to exercise this right ? Whom can it 
injure? Does not every merchant have his secret 
mark ? and who is ever silly enough to complain of it ? 
I presume if the Bank does require any such oath of 
secrecy, it is done through a motive of delicacy to 
those individuals who deal with it. Why, Sir, not 
many days since, one gentleman upon this floor, 
who, by the way, I have no doubt is now ready to 
join this hue and cry against the Bank, indulged in a 
philippic against one of the Bank officials, because, 
as he said, he had divulged a secret. 

Immediately following this last charge, there are 
several insinuations in the resolution, which are too 
silly to require any sort of notice, were it not for 
the fact that they conclude by saying, ' ' to the great 
injury of the people at large." In answer to this I 
would say that it is strange enough, that the peo- 
ple are suffering these "great injuries," and yet are 
not sensible of it! Singular indeed that the people 
should be writhing under oppression and injury, and 
yet not one among them to be found to raise the 
voice of complaint. If the Bank be inflicting injury 
upon the people, why is it that not a single petition 
is presented to this body on the subject? If the 
Bank really be a grievance, why is it that no one of 
the real people is found to ask redress of it? The 



Abraham Lincoln 141 

truth is, no such oppression exists. If it did, our 
people would groan with memorials and petitions, 
and we would not be permitted to rest day or night, 
till we had put it down. The people know their 
rights, and they are never slow to assert and main- 
tain them, when they are invaded. Let them call 
for an investigation, and I shall ever stand ready to 
respond to the call. But they have made no such 
call. I make the assertion boldly, and without fear 
of contradiction, that no man, who does not hold an 
office, or does not aspire to one, has ever found any 
fault of the Bank. It has doubled the prices of the 
products of their farms, and filled their pockets with 
a sound circulating medium, and they are all well 
pleased with its operations. No, Sir, it is the poli- 
tician who is the first to sound the alarm (which, by 
the way, is a false one.) It is he, who, by these 
unholy means, is endeavoring to blow up a storm that 
he may ride upon and direct. It is he, and he alone, 
that here proposes to spend thousands of the people's 
public treasure, for no other advantage to them 
than to make valueless in their pockets the reward 
of their industry. Mr. Chairman, this work is ex- 
clusively the work of politicians; a set of men 
who have interests aside from the interests of the 
people, and who, to say the most of them, are, taken 
as a mass, at least one long step removed from 
honest men. I say this with the greater freedom, 
because, being a politician myself, none can regard 
it as personal. 

Again, it is charged, or rather insinuated, that 
officers of the Bank have loaned money at usurious 



142 The Writings of 

rates of interest. Suppose this to be true, are we to 
send a committee of this House to inquire into it? 
Suppose the committee should find it true, can they 
redress the injured individuals? Assuredly not. 
If any individual had been injured in this way, is 
there not an ample remedy to be found in the laws 
of the land? Does the gentleman from Coles know 
that there is a statute standing in full force making 
it highly penal for an individual to loan money at a 
higher rate of interest than twelve per cent? If he 
does not he is too ignorant to be placed at the head 
of the committee which his resolution purposes ; 
and if he does, his neglect to mention it shows him 
to be too uncandid to merit the respect or con- 
fidence of any one. 

But besides all this, if the Bank were struck from 
existence, could not the owners of the capital still 
loan it usuriously, as well as now? Whatever the 
Bank, or its officers, may have done, I know that 
usurious transactions were much more frequent and 
enormous before the commencement of its opera- 
tions than they have ever been since. 

The next insinuation is, that the Bank has refused 
specie payments. This, if true is a violation of the 
charter. But there is not the least probability of 
its truth; because, if such had been the fact, the 
individual to whom payment was refused would 
have had an interest in making it public, by suing 
for the damages to which the charter entitles him. 
Yet no such thing has been done; and the strong 
presumption is, that the insinuation is false and 
groundless. 



Abraham Lincoln 143 

From this to the end of the resolution, there is 
nothing that merits attention — I therefore drop the 
particular examination of it. 

By a general view of the resolution, it will be seen 
that a principal object of the committee is to ex- 
amine into, and ferret out, a mass of corruption sup- 
posed to have been committed by the commissioners 
who apportioned the stock of the Bank. I believe 
it is universally understood and acknowledged that 
all men will ever act correctly unless they have a 
motive to do otherwise. If this be true, we can only 
suppose that the commissioners acted corruptly by 
also supposing that they were bribed to do so. 
Taking this view of the subject, I would ask if the 
Bank is likely to find it more difficult to bribe the 
committee of seven, which we are about to appoint, 
than it may have found it to bribe the commis- 
sioners ? 

(Here Mr. Linder called to order. The Chair 
decided that Mr. Lincoln was not out of order. Mr. 
Linder appealed to the House, but, before the ques- 
tion was put, withdrew his appeal, saying he pre- 
ferred to let the gentleman go on; he thought he 
would break his own neck. Mr. Lincoln proceeded :) 

Another gracious condescension! I acknowledge it 
with gratitude. I know I was not out of order ; and 
I know every sensible man in the House knows it. I 
was not saying that the gentleman from Coles could 
be bribed, nor, on the other hand, will I say he could 
not. In that particular I leave him where I found 
him. I was only endeavoring to show that there 
was at least as great a probability of any seven 



144 The Writings of 

members that could be selected from this House 
being bribed to act corruptly, as there was that the 
twenty-four commissioners had been so bribed. 
By a reference to the ninth section of the Bank 
charter, it will be seen that those commissioners were 
John Tilson, Robert K. McLaughlin, Daniel Wann, 
A. G. S. Wight, John C. Riley, W. H. Davidson, 
Edward M. Wilson, Edward L. Pierson, Robert R. 
Green, Ezra Baker, Aquilla Wren, John Taylor, 
Samuel C. Christy, Edmund Roberts, Benjamin 
Godfrey, Thomas Mather, A. M. Jenkins, W. Linn, 
W. S. Gilman, Charles Prentice, Richard L Hamilton, 
A. H. Buckner, W. F. Thornton, and Edmund D. 
Taylor. 

These are twenty-four of the most respectable 
men in the State. Probably no twenty-four men 
could be selected in the State with whom the peo- 
ple are better acquainted, or in whose honor and 
integrity they would more readily place confidence. 
And I now repeat, that there is less probability that 
those men have been bribed and corrupted, than that 
any seven men, or rather any six men, that could be 
selected from the members of this House, might be so 
bribed and corrupted, even though they were headed 
and led on by "decided superiority" himself. 

In all seriousness, I ask every reasonable man, if 
an issue be joined by these twenty-four commis- 
sioners, on the one part, and any other seven men, 
on the other part, and the whole depend upon the 
honor and integrity of the contending parties, to 
which party would the greatest degree of credit be 
due? Again: Another consideration is, that we 



Abraham Lincoln i45 

have no right to make the examination. What I 
shall say upon this head I design exclusively for 
the law-loving and law-abiding part of the House. 
To those who claim omnipotence for the Legislature, 
and who in the plenitude of their assumed powers 
are disposed to disregard the Constitution, law, good 
faith, moral right, and everything else, I have not a 
word to say. But to the law-abiding part I say, 
examine the Bank charter, go examine the Constitu- 
tion, go examine the acts that the General Assembly 
of this State has passed, and you will find just as 
much authority given in each and every of them to 
compel the Bank to bring its coffers to this hall and 
to pour their contents upon this floor, as to compel it 
to submit to this examination which this resolution 
proposes. Why, Sir, the gentleman from Coles, the 
mover of this resolution, very lately denied on this 
floor that the Legislature had any right to repeal or 
otherwise meddle with its own acts, when those acts 
were made in the nature of contracts, and had been 
accepted and acted on by other parties. Now I ask 
if this resolution does not propose, for this House 
alone, to do what he, but the other day, denied the 
right of the whole Legislature to do ? He must either 
abandon the position he then took, or he must now 
vote against his own resolution. It is no difference 
to me, and I presume but little to any one else, which 
he does. 

I am by no means the special advocate of the Bank. 
I have long thought that it would be well for it to 
report its condition to the General Assembly, and 
that cases might occur, when it might be proper to 

VOL.1. — lO. 



146 The Writings of 

make an examination of its affairs by a committee. 
Accordingly, during the last session, while a bill 
supplemental to the Bank charter was pending be- 
fore the House, I offered an amendment to the same, 
in these words: "The said corporation shall, at the 
next session of the General Assembly, and at each 
subsequent General Session, during the existence of 
its charter, report to the same the amount of debts 
due from said corporation ; the amount of debts due 
to the same ; the amount of specie in its vaults, and 
an account of all lands then owned by the same, 
and the amount for which such lands have been taken ; 
and moreover, if said corporation shall at any time 
neglect or refuse to submit its books, papers, and all 
and everything necessary for a full and fair exami- 
nation of its affairs, to any person or persons ap- 
pointed by the General Assembly, for the purpose of 
making such examination, the said corporation shall 
forfeit its charter." 

This amendment was negatived by a vote of 34 to 
15. Eleven of the 34 who voted against it are now 
members of this House ; and though it would be out 
of order to call their names, I hope they will all 
recollect themselves, and not vote for this examina- 
tion to be made without authority, inasmuch as 
they refused to receive the authority when it was in 
their power to do so. 

I have said that cases might occur, when an 
examination might be proper; but I do not believe 
any such case has now occurred; and if it has, I 
should still be opposed to making an examination 
without legal authority. I am opposed to encourag- 



Abraham Lincoln 147 

ing that lawless and mobocratic spirit, whether in 
relation to the Bank or anything else, which is 
already abroad in the land and is spreading with 
rapid and fearful impetuosity, to the ultimate over- 
throw of every institution, of every moral principle, 
in which persons and property have hitherto found 
security. 

But supposing we had the authority, I would ask 
what good can result from the examination? Can 
we declare the Bank unconstitutional, and compel 
it to desist from the abuses of its power, provided we 
find such abuses to exist ? Can we repair the injuries 
which it may have done to individuals? Most 
certainly we can do none of these things. Why then 
shall we spend the public money in such employment ? 
Oh, say the examiners, we can injure the credit of the 
Bank, if nothing else. Please tell me, gentlemen, 
who will suffer most by that? You cannot injure, 
to any extent, the stockholders. They are men of 
wealth — of large capital; and consequently, beyond 
the power of malice. But by injuring the credit of 
the Bank, you will depreciate the value of its paper 
in the hands of the honest and unsuspecting farmer 
and mechanic, and that is all you can do. But sup- 
pose you could effect your whole purpose ; suppose 
you could wipe the Bank from existence, which is the 
grand ultimatum of the project, what would be the 
consequence? Why, Sir, we should spend several 
thousand dollars of the public treasure in the opera- 
tion, annihilate the currency of the State, render 
valueless in the hands of our people that reward of 
their former labors, and finally be once more under 



148 The Writings of 

the comfortable obligation of paying the Wiggins 
loan, principal and interest. 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE YOUNG MEN S LYCEUM OF 
SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. 

January 27, 1837. 

As a subject for the remarks of the evening, 
"The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions" is 
selected. 

In the great journal of things happening under the 
sun, we, the American people, find our account run- 
ning under date of the nineteenth century of the 
Christian era. We find ourselves in the peaceful 
possession of the fairest portion of the earth as 
regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and 
salubrity of climate. We find ourselves under the 
government of a system of political institutions con- 
ducing more essentially to the ends of civil and re- 
ligious liberty than any of which the history of 
former times tells us. We, when mounting the stage 
of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of 
these fundamental blessings. We toiled not in the 
acquirement or establishment of them; they are 
a legacy bequeathed us by a once hardy, brave, and 
patriotic, but now lamented and departed, race of 
ancestors. Theirs was the task (and nobly they 
performed it) to possess themselves, and through 
themselves us, of this goodly land, and to uprear 
upon its hills and its valleys a political edifice of 
liberty and equal rights ; 't is ours only to transmit 



Abraham Lincoln 149 

these — ^the former unprofaned by the foot of an 
invader, the latter undecayed by the lapse of time 
and untom by usurpation — to the latest generation 
that fate shall permit the world to know. This task 
gratitude to our fathers, justice to ourselves, duty to 
posterity, and love for our species in general, all 
imperatively require us faithfully to perform. 

How then shall we perform it? At what point 
shall we expect the approach of danger? By what 
means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect 
some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean 
and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of 
Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the 
treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their 
military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, 
could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or 
make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a 
thousand years. 

At what point then is the approach of danger to be 
expected? I answer, If it ever reach us it must 
spring up amongst us ; it cannot come from abroad. 
If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its 
author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we 
must live through all time, or die by suicide. 

I hope I am over- wary; but if I am not, there is 
even now something of ill omen amongst us. I 
mean the increasing disregard for law which per- 
vades the country — the growing disposition to sub- 
stitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the 
sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage 
mobs for the executive ministers of justice. This 
disposition is awfully fearful in any community; 



150 The Writings of 

and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our 
feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth 
and an insult to our intelligence to deny. Accounts 
of outrages committed by mobs form the everj^-'day 
news of the times. They have pervaded the country 
from New England to Louisiana; they are neither 
peculiar to the eternal snows of the former nor the 
burning suns of the latter ; they are not the creature 
of climate, neither are they confined to the slave- 
holding or the non-slaveholding States. Alike they 
spring up among the pleasure-himting masters of 
Southern slaves, and the order-loving citizens of the 
land of steady habits. Whatever then their cause 
may be, it is common to the whole country. 

It would be tedious as vs^ell as useless to recount 
the horrors of all of them. Those happening in the 
State of Mississippi and at St. Louis are perhaps the 
most dangerous in example and revolting to human- 
ity. In the Mississippi case they first commenced 
by hanging the regular gamblers — a set of men 
certainly not following for a livelihood a very useful 
or very honest occupation, but one which, so far 
from being forbidden by the laws, was actually 
licensed by an act of the Legislature passed but a 
single year before. Next, negroes suspected of con- 
spiring to raise an insurrection were caught up and 
hanged in all parts of the State; then, white men 
supposed to be leagued with the negroes; and 
finally, strangers from neighboring States, going 
thither on business, were in many instances subjected 
to the same fate. Thus went on this process of 
hanging, from gamblers to negroes, from negroes to 



Abraham Lincoln 151 

white citizens, and from these to strangers, till dead 
men were seen literally dangling from the boughs of 
trees upon every roadside, and in numbers almost 
sufficient to rival the native Spanish moss of the 
country as a drapery of the forest. 

Turn then to that horror-striking scene at St. 
Louis. A single victim only was sacrificed there. 
This story is very short, and is perhaps the most 
highly tragic of anything, of its length that has ever 
been witnessed in real life. A mulatto man by the 
name of Mcintosh was seized in the street, dragged 
to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and 
actually burned to death; and all within a single 
hour from the time he had been a freeman attending 
to his own business and at peace with the world. 

Such are the effects of mob law, and such are the 
scenes becoming more and more frequent in this land 
so lately famed for love of law and order, and the 
stories of which have even now grown too familiar 
to attract anything more than an idle remark. 

But you are perhaps ready to ask, "What has this 
to do with the perpetuation of our political institu- 
tions?" I answer. It has much to do with it. Its 
direct consequences are, comparatively speaking, 
but a small evil, and much of its danger consists iii 
the proneness of our minds to regard its direct as 
its only consequences. Abstractly considered, the 
hanging of the gamblers at Vicksburg was of but 
little consequence. They constitute a portion of 
population that is worse than useless in any com- 
munity; and their death, if no pernicious example 
be set by it, is never matter of reasonable regret 



152 The Writings of 

with any one. If they were annually swept from 
the stage of existence by the plague or smallpox, 
honest men would perhaps be much profited by the 
operation. Similar too is the correct reasoning in 
regard to the burning of the negro at St. Louis. He 
had forfeited his life by the perpetration of an out- 
rageous murder upon one of the most worthy and 
respectable citizens of the city, and had he not died 
as he did, he must have died by the sentence of the 
law in a very short time afterwards. As to him 
alone, it was as well the way it was as it could other- 
wise have been. But the example in either case was 
fearful. When men take it in their heads to-day 
to hang gamblers or bum murderers, they should 
recollect that in the confusion usually attending such 
transactions they will be as likely to hang or bum 
some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer 
as one who is, and that, acting upon the example 
they set, the mob of to-morrow may, and probably 
will, hang or burn some of them by the very same 
mistake. And not only so: the innocent, those who 
have ever set their faces against violations of law in 
every shape, alike with the guilty fall victipis to the 
ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by 
step, till all the walls erected for the defence of the 
persons and property of individuals are trodden down 
and disregarded. But all this, even, is not the full 
extent of the evil. By such examples, by instances 
of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, 
the lawless in spirit are encouraged to become lawless 
in practice ; and having been used to no restraint but 
dread of punishment, they thus become absolutely 



Abraham Lincoln 153 

unrestrained. Having ever regarded government as 
their deadUest bane, they make a jubilee of the sus- 
pension of its operations, and pray for nothing so 
much as its total annihilation. While, on the other 
hand, good men, men who love tranquillity, who de- 
sire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, 
who would gladly spill their blood in the defence of 
their country, seeing their property destroyed, their 
families insulted, and their lives endangered, their 
persons injured, and seeing nothing in prospect that 
forebodes a change for the better, become tired of 
and disgusted with a government that offers them 
no protection, and are not much averse to a change 
in which they imagine they have nothing to lose. 
Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocratic 
spirit which all must admit is now abroad in the land, 
the strongest bulwark of any government, and 
particularly of those constituted like ours, may 
effectually be broken down and destroyed — I mean 
the attachment of the people. Whenever this effect 
shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious 
portion of population shall be permitted to gather in 
bands of hundreds and thousands, and bum churches, 
ravage and rob provision-stores, throw printing- 
presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and bum 
obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity, 
depend on it, this government cannot last. By 
such things the feelings of the best citizens will 
become more or less alienated from it, and thus it 
will be left without friends, or with too few, and those 
few too weak to make their friendship effectual. At 
such a time, and under such circumstances, men of 



154 The Writings of 

sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to 
seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn 
that fair fabric which for the last half century has 
been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom 
throughout the world. 

I know the American people are much attached to 
their government ; I know they would suffer much 
for its sake; I know they would endure evils long 
and patiently before they would ever think of ex- 
changing it for another, — yet, notwithstanding all 
this, if the laws be continually despised and disre- 
garded, if their rights to be secure in their persons 
and property are held by no better tenure than the 
caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections 
from the government is the natural consequence; 
and to that, sooner or later, it must come. 

Here, then, is one point at which danger may be 
expected. 

The question recurs, How shall we fortify against 
it? The answer is simple. Let every American, 
every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his pos- 
terity swear by the blood of the Revolution never 
to violate in the least particular the laws of the 
country, and never to tolerate their violation by 
others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the 
support of the Declaration of Independence, so to 
the support of the Constitution and laws let every 
American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred 
honor. Let every man remember that to violate the 
law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to 
tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. 
Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every 



Abraham Lincoln 155 

American mother to the lisping babe that prattles 
on her lap ; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, 
and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling- 
books, and in almanacs ; let it be preached from the 
pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced 
in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the 
political reHgion of the nation ; and let the old and 
the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the 
gay of all sexes and tongues and colors and condi- 
tions, sacrifice imceasingly upon its altars. 

While ever a state of feeling such as this shall 
universally or even very generally prevail through- 
out the nation, vain will be every effort, and fruit- 
less every attempt, to subvert our national freedom. 

When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all 
the laws, let me not be understood as saying there 
are no bad laws, or that grievances may not arise 
for the redress of which no legal provisions have been 
made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do 
mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, 
should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while 
they continue in force, for the sake of example they 
should be religiously observed. So also in unpro- 
vided cases. If such arise, let proper legal pro- 
visions be made for them with the least possible 
delay, but till then let them, if not too intolerable, be 
borne with. 

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress 
by mob law. In any case that may arise, as, for in- 
stance, the promulgation of abolitionism, one of two 
positions is necessarily true — that is, the thing is right 
within itself, and therefore deserves the protection 



156 The Writings of 

of all law and all good citizens, or it is wrong, and 
therefore proper to be prohibited by legal enact- 
ments ; and in neither case is the interposition of mob 
law either necessary, justifiable, or excusable. 

But it may be asked, Why suppose danger to our 
political institutions? Have we not preserved them 
for more than fifty years ? And why may we not for 
fifty times as long? 

We hope there is no sufficient reason. We hope 
all danger may be overcome; but to conclude that 
no danger may ever arise would itself be extremely 
dangerous. There are now, and will hereafter be, 
many causes, dangerous in their tendency, which 
have not existed heretofore, and which are not too 
insignificant to merit attention. That our govern- 
ment should have been maintained in its original 
form, from its establishment until now, is not much 
to be wondered at. It had many props to support 
it through that period, which now are decayed and 
crumbled away. Through that period it was felt 
by all to be an undecided experiment; now it is 
understood to be a successful one. Then, all that 
sought celebrity and fame and distinction expected 
to find them in the success of that experiment. Their 
all was staked upon it ; their destiny was inseparably 
linked with it. Their ambition aspired to display 
before an admiring world a practical demonstration 
of the truth of a proposition which had hitherto 
been considered at best no better than problematical 
— ^namely, the capability of a people to govern them- 
selves. If they succeeded they were to be im- 
mortalized; their names were to be transferred to 



Abraham Lincoln 157 

counties, and cities, and rivers, and mountains; 
and to be revered and sung, toasted through all time. 
If they failed, they were to be called knaves, and 
fools, and fanatics for a fleeting hour; then to sink 
and be forgotten. They succeeded. The experi- 
ment is successful, and thousands have won their 
deathless names in making it so. But the game is 
caught ; and I believe it is true that with the catch- 
ing end the pleasures of the chase. This field of 
glory is harvested, and the crop is already appro- 
priated. But new reapers will arise, and they too 
will seek a field. It is to deny what the history of 
the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of 
ambition and talents will not continue to spring up 
amongst us. And when they do, they will as natur- 
ally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as 
others have done before them. The question then is, 
Can that gratification be found in supporting and 
maintaining an edifice that has been erected by 
others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and 
good men, sufficiently qualified for any task they 
should undertake, may ever be found whose ambi- 
tion would aspire to nothing beyond a seat in Con- 
gress, a Gubernatorial or a Presidential chair; but 
such belong not to the family of the lion, or the tribe 
of the eagle. What! think you these places would 
satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon? 
Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. 
It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It sees no 
distinction in adding story to story upon the monu- 
ments of fame erected to the memory of others. It 
denies that it is glory enough to serve under any 



158 The Writings of 

chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any 
predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and 
bums for distinction ; and if possible, it will have it, 
whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or 
enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable, then, to 
expect that some man possessed of the loftiest 
genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to 
its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up 
among us? And when such an one does it will 
require the people to be united with each other, 
attached to the government and laws, and generally 
intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. 

Distinction will be his paramount object, and 
although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, 
acquire it by doing good as harm, yet, that opportu- 
nity being past, and nothing left to be done in the 
way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of 
pulling down. 

Here then is a probable case, highly dangerous, and 
such an one as could not have well existed heretofore. 

Another reason which once was, but which, to the 
same extent, is now no more, has done much in 
maintaining our institutions thus far. I mean the 
powerful influence which the interesting scenes of 
the Revolution had upon the passions of the people 
as distinguished from their judgment. By this in- 
fluence, the jealousy, envy, and avarice incident to 
our nature, and so common to a state of peace, 
prosperity, and conscious strength, were for the time 
in a great measure smothered and rendered inactive, 
while the deep-rooted principles of hate, and the 
powerful motive of revenge, instead of being turned 



Abraham Lincoln 159 

against each other, were directed exclusively against 
the British nation. And thus, from the force of 
circumstances, the basest principles of our nature 
were either made to lie dormant, or to become the 
active agents in the advancement of the noblest of 
causes — that of establishing and maintaining civil 
and religious liberty. 

But this state of feeHng must fade, is fading, has 
faded, with the circumstances that produced it. 

I do not mean to say that the scenes of the Revolu- 
tion are now or ever will be entirely forgotten, but 
that, like everything else, they must fade upon the 
memory of the world, and grow more and more dim 
by the lapse of time. In history, we hope, they will 
be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall 
be read; but even granting that they will, their 
influence cannot be what it heretofore has been. 
Even then they cannot be so universally known nor 
so vividly felt as they were by the generation just 
gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly 
every adult male had been a participator in some 
of its scenes. The consequence was that of those 
scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son, or a 
brother, a living history was to be found in every 
family — a history bearing the indubitable testimonies 
of its own authenticity, in the Hmbs mangled, in the 
scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very 
scenes related — a history, too, that could be read and 
understood ahke by all, the wise and the ignorant, 
the learned and the unlearned. But those histo- 
ries are gone. They can be read no more forever. 
They were a fortress of strength ; but what invading 



i6o The Writings of 

f oeman could never do the silent artillery of time has 
done — the levelling of its walls. They are gone. 
They were a forest of giant oaks ; but the all -restless 
hurricane has swept over them, and left only here 
and there a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, 
shorn of its foliage, unshading and unshaded, to 
murmur in a few more gentle breezes, and to com- 
bat with its multilated limbs a few more ruder 
storms, then to sink and be no more. 

They were pillars of the temple of liberty; and 
now that they have crumbled away that temple must 
fall unless we, their descendants, supply their places 
with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of 
sober reason. Passion has helped us, but can do so 
no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason — 
cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason — must fur- 
nish all the materials for our future support and 
defence. Let those materials be moulded into 
general intelligence, sound morality, and in particu- 
lar, a reverence for the Constitution and laws ; and 
that we improved to the last, that we remained free 
to the last, that we revered his name to the last, that 
during his long sleep we permitted no hostile 
foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place, 
shall be that which to learn the last trump shall 
awaken our Washington. 

Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, 
as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been 
said of the only greater institution, "the gates of 
hell shall not prevail against it." 



Abraham Lincoln i6i 

PROTEST IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE ON THE 
SUBJECT OF SLAVERY. 

March 3, 1837. 

The following protest was presented to the House, 
which was read and ordered to be spread on the 
journals, to wit : 

''Resolutions upon the subject of domestic slavery- 
having passed both branches of the General Assem- 
bly at its present session, the undersigned hereby 
protest against the passage of the same. 

"They believe that the institution of slavery is 
founded on both injustice and bad policy, but that 
the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather 
to increase than abate its evils. 

"They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has no power under the Constitution to 
interfere with the institution of slavery in the 
different States. 

"They believe that the Congress of the United 
States has the power, under the Constitution, to 
aboUsh slavery in the District of Columbia, but 
that the power ought not to be exercised, unless at 
the request of the people of the District. 

"The difference between these opinions and those 
contained in the said resolutions is their reason 
for entering this protest. 

"Dan Stone, 
"A. Lincoln, 

" Representatives from the County of Sangamon. " 



VOL. I. — II. 



1 62 The Writings of 

TO MISS MARY OWENS. 

Springfield, May 7, 1837.- 

Miss Mary S. Owens. 

Friend Mary: — I have commenced two letters 
to send you before this, both of which displeased me 
before I got half done, and so I tore them up. The 
first I thought was not serious enough, and the sec- 
ond was on the other extreme. I shall send this, 
turn out as it may. 

This thing of living in Springfield is rather a 
dull business, after all ; at least it is so to me. I am 
quite as lonesome here as I ever was anywhere in 
my life. I have been spoken to by but one woman 
since I have been here, and should not have been by 
her if she could have avoided it. I 've never been 
to church yet, and probably shall not be soon. I 
stay away because I am conscious I should not 
know how to behave myself. 

I am often thinking of what we said about your 
coming to live at Springfield. I am afraid you 
would not be satisfied. There is a great deal of 
flourishing about in carriages here, which it would 
be your doom to see without sharing it. You 
would have to be poor, without the means of hiding 
your poverty. Do you believe you could bear that 
patiently? Whatever woman may cast her lot 
with mine, should any ever do so, it is my intention 
to do all in my power to make her happy and con- 
tented; and there is nothing I can imagine that 
would make me more unhappy than to fail in the 
effort. I know I should be much happier with you 
than the way I am, provided I saw no signs of dis- 



Abraham Lincoln 163 

content in you. What you have said to me may 
have been in the way of jest, or I may have mis- 
understood you. If so, then let it be forgotten; 
if otherwise, I much wish you would think seriously 
before you decide. What I have said I will most 
positively abide by, provided you wish it. My 
opinion is that you had better not do it. You have 
not been accustomed to hardship, and it may be 
more severe than you now imagine. I know you 
are capable of thinking correctly on any subject, and 
if you deliberate maturely upon this subject before 
you decide, then I am willing to abide your decision. 
You must write me a good long letter after 
you get this. You have nothing else to do, and 
though it might not seem interesting to you after 
you had written it, it would be a good deal of com- 
pany to me in this "busy wilderness." Tell your 
sister I don't want to hear any more about selling 
out and moving. That gives me the "hypo" when- 
ever I think of it. Yours, etc., t 

' Lincoln. 



TO JOHN BENNETT. 

Springfield, III., Aug. 5, 1837. 

John Bennett, Esq. 

Dear Sir: — Mr. Edwards tells me you wish to 
know whether the act to which your own incorpora- 
tion provision was attached passed into a law. It 
did. You can organize under the general incorpora- 
tion law as soon as you choose. 

I also tacked a provision onto a fellow's bill to 
authorize the relocation of the road from Salem 



1 64 The Writings of 

down to your town, but I am not certain whether or 
not the bill passed, neither do I suppose I can ascer-- 
tain before the law will be published, if it is a law. 
Bowling Greene, Bennette Abe? and yourself are 
appointed to make the change. No news. No 
excitement except a little about the election of 
Monday next. 

I suppose, of course, our friend Dr. Heney stands 
no chance in your diggings. 

Your friend and humble servant, 

A. Lincoln. 



TO MARY OWENS. 

Springfield, Aug. i6, 1837. 

Friend Mary: 

You will no doubt think it rather strange that I 
should write you a letter on the same day on which 
we parted, and I can only account for it by supposing 
that seeing you lately makes me think of you more 
than usual; while at our late meeting we had but 
few expressions of thoughts. You must know that I 
cannot see you, or think of you, with entire indiffer- 
ence; and yet it may be that you are mistaken in 
regard to what my real feelings toward you are. 

If I knew you were not, I should not have troubled 
you with this letter. Perhaps any other man would 
know enough without information; but I consider 
it my peculiar right to plead ignorance, and your 
bounden duty to allow the plea. 

I want in all cases to do right ; and most particu- 
larly so in all cases with women. 

I want, at this particular time, more than any- 



Abraham Lincoln 165 

thing else to do right with you; and if I knew it 
would be doing right, as I rather suspect it would, to 
let you alone I would do it. And, for the purpose of 
making the matter as plain as possible, I now say 
that you can drop the subject, dismiss your thoughts 
(if you ever had any) from me for ever and leave 
this letter unanswered without calling forth one 
accusing murmur from me. And I will even go 
further and say that, if it will add anything to your 
comfort or peace of mind to do so, it is my sincere 
wish that you should. Do not understand by this 
that I wish to cut your acquaintance. I mean 
no such thing. What I do wish is that our further 
acquaintance shall depend upon yourself. If such 
further acquaintance would contribute nothing to 
your happiness, I am sure it would not to mine. If 
you feel yourself in any degree bound to me, I am 
now willing to release you, provided you wish it; 
while on the other hand I am willing and 'even 
anxious to bind you faster if I can be convinced that 
it will, in any considerable degree, add to your 
happiness. This, indeed, is the whole question with 
me. Nothing would make me more miserable than 
to believe you miserable, nothing more happy than 
to know you were so. 

In what I have now said, I think I cannot be mis- 
understood; and to make myself understood is the 
only object of this letter. 

If it suits you best not to answer this, farewell. 
A long life and a merry one attend you. But, if 
you conclude to write back, speak as plainly as I do. 
There can neither be harm nor danger in saying to 



i66 The Writings of 

me anything you think, just in the manner you think 
it. My respects to your sister. 

Your friend, 

Lincoln. 



TO THE PEOPLE. 
"Sangamon Journal," Springfield, III., Aug. 19, 1837. 

In accordance with our determination, as expressed 
last week, we present to the reader the articles which 
were published in hand-bill form, in reference to 
the case of the heirs of Joseph Anderson vs. James 
Adams. These articles can now be read unin- 
fluenced by personal or party feeling, and with the 
sole motive of learning the truth. When that is 
done, the reader can pass his own judgment on the 
matters at issue. 

We only regret in this case, that the publications 
were not made some weeks before the election. Such 
a course might have prevented the expressions of 
regret, which have often been heard since, from 
different individuals, on account of the disposition 
they made of their votes. 

To the Public. 

It is well known to most of you, that there is 
existing at this time considerable excitement in 
regard to Gen. Adams's titles to certain tracts of land, 
and the manner in which he acquired them. As I 
understand, the Gen. charges that the whole has 
been gotten up by a knot of lawyers to injure his 
election; and as I am one of the knot to which 
he refers, and as I happen to be in possession of 
facts connected with the matter, I will, in as brief 



Abraham Lincoln 167 

a manner as possible, make a statement of them, 
together with the means by which I arrived at the 
knowledge of them. 

Sometime in May or June last, a widow woman, 
by the name of Anderson, and her son, who resides 
in Fulton county, came to Springfield, for the purpose 
as they said of selling a ten acre lot of ground lying 
near town, which they claimed as the property of the 
deceased husband and father. 

When they reached town they found the land was 
claimed by Gen. Adams. John T. Stuart and my- 
self were employed to look into the matter, and if it 
was thought we could do so with any prospect of 
success, to commence a suit for the land. I went 
immediately to the recorder's office to examine 
Adams's title, and found that the land had been 
entered by one Dixon, deeded by Dixon to Thomas, 
by Thomas to one Miller, and by Miller to Gen. 
Adams. The oldest of these three deeds was about 
ten or eleven years old, and the latest more than five, 
all recorded at the same time, and that within less 
than one year. This I thought a suspicious circum- 
stance, and I was thereby induced to examine the 
deeds very closely, with a view to the discovery of 
some defect by which to overturn the title, being 
almost convinced then it was founded in fraud. I 
finally discovered that in the deed from Thomas to 
Miller, although Miller's name stood in a sort of 
marginal note on the record book, it was nowhere 
in the deed itself. I told the fact to Talbott, the 
recorder, and proposed to him that he should go to 
Gen. Adams's and get the original deed, and compare 
it with the record, and thereby ascertain whether the 



i68 



The Writings of 



defect was in the original or there was merely an 
error in the recording. As Talbott afterwards told 
me, he went to the General's, but not finding him 
at home, got the deed from his son, which, when 
compared with the record, proved what we had dis- 
covered was merely an error of the recorder. After 
Mr. Talbott corrected the record, be brought the 
original to our office, as I then thought and think yet, 
to show us that it was right. When he came into 
the room he handed the deed to me, remarking that 
the fault was all his own. On opening it, another 
paper fell out of it, which on examination proved to 
be an assignment of a judgment in the Circuit Court 
of Sangamon County from Joseph Anderson, the late 
husband of the widow above named, to James 
Adams, the judgment being in favor of said Ander- 
son against one Joseph Miller. Knowing that this 
judgment had some connection with the land affair, 
I immediately took a copy of it, which is word for 
word, letter for letter and cross for cross as follows : 



Joseph Anderson, 



vs. 



Joseph Miller. 



May loth, 1827. 



Judgment in Sangamon Cir- 
cuit Court against Joseph 
Miller obtained on a note 
originally 25 dolls and inter- 
^est thereon accrued. 

I assign all my right, title 
and interest to James Adams 
which is in consideration of a 
debt I owe said Adams. 

his 
Joseph X Anderson. 
mark." 



Abraham Lincoln 169 

As the copy shows, it bore date May 10, 1827; 
although the judgment assigned by it was not 
obtained until the October afterwards, as may be 
seen by any one on the records of the Circuit Court. 
Two other strange circumstances attended it which 
cannot be represented by a copy. One of them was, 
that the date "1827" had first been made "1837" 
and, without the figure "3" being fully obliterated, 
the figure " 2 " had afterwards been made on top of it ; 
the other was that, although the date was ten years 
old, the writing on it, from the freshness of its ap- 
pearance, was thought by many, and I believe by all 
who saw it, not to be more than a week old. The 
paper on which it was written had a very old appear- 
ance; and there were some old figures on the back 
of it which made the freshness of the writing on the 
face of it much more striking than I suppose it other- 
wise might have been. The reader's curiosity is no 
doubt excited to know what connection this assign- 
ment had with the land in question. The story is 
this: Dixon sold and deeded the land to Thomas; 
Thomas sold it to Anderson; but before he gave a 
deed, Anderson sold it to Miller, and took Miller's 
note for the purchase money. When this note 
became due, Anderson sued Miller on it, and Miller 
procured an injunction from the Court of Chancery to 
stay the collection of the money until he should get a 
deed for the land. Gen. Adams was employed as an 
attorney by Anderson in this chancery suit, and at 
the October term, 1827, the injunction was dissolved, 
and a judgment given in favor of Anderson against 
Miller; and it was provided that Thomas was to 



I70 The Writings of 

execute a deed for the land in favor of Miller and 
deliver it to Gen. Adams, to be held up by him till 
Miller paid the judgment, and then to deliver it to him. 
Miller left the county without paying the judgment. 
Anderson moved to Fulton county, where he has 
since died. When the widow came to Springfield last 
May or June, as before mentioned, and found the 
land deeded to Gen. Adams by Miller, she was natur- 
ally led to inquire why the money due upon the 
judgment had not been sent to them, inasmuch as he, 
Gen. Adams, had no authority to deliver Thomas's 
deed to Miller until the money was paid. Then it 
was the General told her, or perhaps her son, who 
came with her, that Anderson, in his lifetime, had 
assigned the judgment to him, Gen. Adams. I am now 
told that -the General is exhibiting an assignment of 
the same judgment bearing date "1828" and in 
other respects differing from the one described ; and 
that he is asserting that no such assignment as the 
one copied by me ever existed ; or if there did, it was 
forged between Talbott and the lawyers, and slipped 
into his papers for the purpose of injuring him. 
Now, I can only say that I know precisely such a 
one did exist, and that Ben. Talbott, Wm. Butler, C. 
R. Matheny, John T. Stuart, Judge Logan, Robert 
Irwin, P. C. Canedy and S. M. Tinsley, all saw and 
examined it, and that at least one half of them will 
swear that IT WAS IN GENERAL ADAMS'S 
HANDWRITING ! ! And further, I know that 
Talbott will swear that he got it out of the General's 
possession, and returned it into his possession again. 
The assignment which the General is now exhibiting 



Abraham Lincoln 171 

purports to have been by Anderson in writing. The 
one I copied was signed with a cross. 

I am told that Gen. Neale says that he will swear 
that he heard Gen. Adams tell young Anderson that 
the assignment made by his father was signed with a 
cross. 

The above are facts, as stated. I leave them 
without comment. I have given the names of 
persons who have knowledge of these facts, in order 
that any one who chooses may call on them and 
ascertain how far they will corroborate my state- 
ments. I have only made these statements because 
I am known by many to be one of the individuals 
against whom the charge of forging the assignment 
and slipping it into the General's papers has been 
made, and because our silence might be construed 
into a confession of its truth. I shall not subscribe 
my name ; but I hereby authorize the editor of the 
Journal to give it up to any one that may call for it. " ^ 

Messrs. Lincoln and Talbott in Reply to Gen. Adams. 

" Sangamon Journal," Springfield, III., Oct. 28, 1837. 

In the Republican of this morning a publication of 
Gen. Adams's appears, in which my name is used 
quite unreservedly. For this I thank the General. 
I thank him because it gives me an opportunity, 
without appearing obtrusive, of explaining a part of 
a former publication of mine, which appears to me 
to have been misunderstood by many. 

In the former publication alluded to, I stated, in 

' It was subsequently acknowledged that Lincoln was the author of 
this "hand-bill." 



172 The Writings of 

substance, that Mr. Talbott got a deed from a son of 
Gen. Adams's for the purpose of correcting a mis- 
take that had occurred on the record of the said deed 
in the recorder's office; that he corrected the record, 
and brought the deed and handed it to me, and that 
on opening the deed, another paper, being the as- 
signment of a judgment, fell out of it. This state- 
ment Gen. Adams and the editor of the Republican 
have seized upon as a most palpable evidence of 
fabrication and falsehood. They set themselves 
gravely about proving that the assignment could not 
have been in the deed when Talbott got it from 
young Adams, as he, Talbott, would have seen it 
when he opened the deed to correct the record. 
Now, the truth is, Talbott did see the assignment 
when he opened the deed, or at least he told me he 
did on the same day; and I only omitted to say so, 
in my former publication, because it was a matter 
of such palpable and necessary inference. I had 
stated that Talbott had corrected the record by the 
deed; and of course he must have opened it; and, 
just as the General and his friends argue, must have 
seen the assignment. I omitted to state the fact of 
Talbott 's seeing the assignment, because its existence 
was so necessarily connected with other facts which 
I did state, that I thought the greatest dunce could 
not but understand it. Did I say Talbott had not 
seen it? Did I say anything that was inconsistent 
with his having seen it before ? Most certainly I did 
neither; and if I did not, what becomes of the argu- 
ment ? These logical gentlemen cannot sustain their 
argument only by assuming that I did say negatively 



Abraham Lincoln 173 

everything that I did not say affirmatively ; and upon 
the same assumption, we may expect to find the 
General, if a httle harder pressed for argument, 
saying that I said Talbott came to our office with his 
head downward, not that I actually said so, but 
because I omitted to say he came feet downward. 

In his publication to-day, the General produces 
the affidavit of Reuben Radford, in which it is said 
that Talbott told Radford that he did not find the 
assignment in the deed, in the recording of which the 
error was committed, but that he found it wrapped 
in another paper in the recorder's office, upon which 
statement the Genl. comments as follows, to wit: 
"If it be true as stated by Talbott to Radford, that 
he found the assignment wrapped up in another 
paper at his office, that contradicts the statement of 
Lincoln that it fell out of the deed." 

Is common sense to be abused with such sophistry ? 
Did I say what Talbott found it in ? If Talbott did 
find it in another paper at his office, is that any 
reason why he could not have folded it in a deed and 
brought it to my office ? Can any one be so far duped 
as to be made believe that what may have happened 
at Talbott' s office at one time is inconsistent with 
what happened at my office at another time ? 

Now Talbott 's statement of the case as he makes 
it to me is this, that he got a bunch of deeds from 
young Adams, and that he knows he found the 
assignment in the bunch, but he is not certain which 
particular deed it was in, nor is he certain whether it 
was folded in the same deed out of which it was 
taken, or another one, when it was brought to my 



174 The Writings of 

office. Is this a mysterious story ? Is there anything 
suspicious about it? 

"But it is useless to dwell longer on this point. 
Any man who is not wilfully blind can see at a flash, 
that there is no discrepancy, and Lincoln has shown 
that they are not only inconsistent with truth, but 
each other" — I can only say, that I have shown that 
he has done no such thing; and if the reader is 
disposed to require any other evidence than the 
General's assertion, he will be of my opinion. 

Excepting the General's most flimsy attempt at 
mystification, in regard to a discrepance betw^een 
Talbott and myself, he has not denied a single state- 
ment that I made in my hand-bill. Every material 
statement that I made has been sworn to by men 
who, in former times, were thought as respectable as 
General Adams. I stated that an assignment of a 
judgment, a copy of which I gave, had existed — 
Benj. Talbott, C. R. Matheny, Wm. Butler, and 
Judge Logan swore to its existence. I stated that it 
was said to be in Gen. Adams's handwriting — ^the 
same men swore it was in his handwriting. I stated 
that Talbott would swear that he got it out of Gen. 
Adams's possession — ^Talbott came forward and did 
swear it. 

Bidding adieu to the former publication, I now 
propose to examine the General's last gigantic pro- 
duction. I now propose to point out some discrep- 
ancies in the General's address; and such, too, as he 
shall not be able to escape from. Speaking of the 
famous assignment, the General says: "This last 
charge, which was their last resort, their dying effort 



Abraham Lincoln i75 

to render my character infamous among my fellow- 
citizens, was manufactured at a certain lawyer's 
office in the town, printed at the office of the Sanga- 
mon Journal, and found its way into the world some 
time between two days just before the last election.'' 
Now turn to Mr. Keys's affidavit, in which you will 
find the following, viz. : "I certify that some time 
in May or the early part of June, 1837, I saw at 
Williams's comer a paper purporting to be an as- 
signment from Joseph Anderson to James Adams, 
which assignment was signed by a mark to Ander- 
son's name," etc. Now mark, if Keys saw the 
assignment on the last of May or first of June, Gen. 
Adams tells a falsehood when he says it was manu- 
factured just before the election, which was on the 
7th of August; and if it was manufactured just 
before the election, Keys tells a falsehood when he 
says he saw it on the last of May or first of June. 
Either Keys or the General is irretrievably in for it ; 
and in the General's very condescending language, I 
say "let them settle it between them." 

Now again, let the reader, bearing in mind that 
General Adams has unequivocally said, in one part 
of his address, that the charge in relation to the 
assignment was manufactured just before the election, 
turn to the affidavit of Peter S. Weber, where the fol- 
lowing will be found viz.: "I, Peter S. Weber, do 
certify that from the best of my recollection, on the 
day or day after Gen. Adams started for the Illinois 
Rapids, in May last, that I was at the house of Gen. 
Adams, sitting in the kitchen, situated on the back 
part of the house, it being in the afternoon, and that 



176 The Writings of 

Benjamin Talbott came around the house, back into 
the kitchen, and appeared wild and confused, and 
that he laid a package of papers on the kitchen table 
and requested that they should be handed to Lucian. 
He made no apology for coming to the kitchen, nor 
for not handing them to Lucian himself, but showed 
the token of being frightened and confused both in 
demeanor and speech and for what cause I could not 
apprehend." 

Commenting on Weber's affidavit, Gen. Adams 
asks, "Why this fright and confusion?" I reply 
that this is a question for the General himself. 
Weber says that it was in May, and if so, it is most 
clear that Talbott was not frightened on account of 
the assignment, unless the General lies when he says 
the assignment charge was manufactured just before 
the election. Is it not a strong evidence, that the 
General is not travelling with the pole-star of truth 
in his front, to see him in one part of his address 
roundly asserting that the assignment was manu- 
factured just before the election, and then, forgetting 
that position, procuring Weber's most foolish affi- 
davit, to prove that Talbott had been engaged in 
manufacturing it two months before f 

In another part of his address, Gen. Adams says: 
"That I hold an assignment of said judgment, dated 
the 20th of May, 1828, and signed by said Anderson, 
I have never pretended to deny or conceal, but 
stated that fact in one of my circulars previous to 
the election, and also in answer to a bill in chancery ^ 
Now I pronounce this statement unqualifiedly false, 
and shall not rely on the word or oath of any man 



Abraham Lincoln i77 

to sustain me in what I say; but will let the whole 
be decided by reference to the circular and answer 
in chancery of which the General speaks. In his 
circular he did speak of an assignment; but he did 
not say it bore date 20th of May, 1828; nor did he 
say it bore any date. In his answer in chancery, 
he did say that he had an assignment ; but he did not 
say that it bore date the 20th May, 1828; but so far 
from it, he said on oath (for he swore to the answer) 
that as well as recollected, he obtained it in 1827. 
If any one doubts, let him examine the circular and 
answer for himself. They are both accessible. 

It will readily be observed that the principal part 
of Adams's defence rests upon the argument that 
if he had been base enough to forge an assignment 
he would not have been fool enough to forge one that 
would not cover the case. This argument he used 
in his circular before the election. The Republican 
has used it at least once, since then; and Adams 
uses it again in his publication of to-day. Now I 
pledge myself to show that he is just such a fool 
that he and his friends have contended it was im- 
possible for him to be. Recollect — ^he says he has a 
genuine assignment ; and that he got Joseph Klein's 
affidavit, stating that he had seen it, and that he 
believed the signature to have been executed by the 
same hand that signed Anderson's name to the 
answer in chancery. Luckily Klein took a copy of 
this genuine assignment, which I have been permitted 
to see; and hence I know it does not cover the case. 
In the first place it is headed "Joseph Anderson 
vs. Joseph Miller," and heads off "Judgment in 



VOL. I. 12. 



178 The Writings of 

Sangamon Circuit Court." Now, mark, there never 
was a case in Sangamon Circuit Court entitled Joseph 
Anderson vs. Joseph Miller. The case mentioned in 
my former publication, and the only one between 
these parties that ever existed in the Circuit Court, 
was entitled Joseph Miller vs. Joseph Anderson, 
Miller being the plaintiff. What then becomes of all 
their sophistry about Adams not being fool enough to 
forge an assignment that would not cover the case? 
It is certain that the present one does not cover the 
case; and if he got it honestly, it is still clear that 
he was fool enough to pay for an assignment that 
does not cover the case. 

The General asks for the proof of disinterested 
witnesses. Whom does he consider disinterested? 
None can be more so than those who have already 
testified against him. No one of them had the least 
interest on earth, so far as I can learn, to injure him. 
True, he says they had conspired against him; but 
if the testimony of an angel from Heaven were in- 
troduced against him, he would make the same 
charge of conspiracy. Arid now I put the question to 
every reflecting man. Do you believe that Benjamin 
Talbott, Chas. R. Matheny, William Butler and 
Stephen T. Logan, all sustaining high and spotless 
characters, and justly proud of them, would deliber- 
ately perjure themselves, without any motive what- 
ever, except to injure a man's election; and that, 
too, a man who had been a candidate, time out of 
mind, and yet who had never been elected to any 
ofhce? 

Adams's assurance, in demanding disinterested 



Abraham Lincoln i79 

testimony, is surpassing. He brings in the affidavit 
of his own son, and even of Peter S. Weber, with 
whom I am not acquainted, but who, I suppose, is 
some black or mulatto boy, from his being kept in the 
kitchen, to prove his points; but when such a man as 
Talbott, a man who, but two years ago, ran against 
Gen. Adams for the office of Recorder and beat him 
more than four votes to one, is introduced against 
him, he asks the community, with all the consequence 
of a lord, to reject his testimony. 

I might easily write a volume, pointing out incon- 
sistencies between the statements in Adams's last 
address with one another, and with other known 
facts; but I am aware the reader must already be 
tired with the length of this article. His opening 
statements, that he was first accused of being a tory, 
and that he refuted that; that then the Sampson's 
ghost stor}^ was got up, and he refuted that; that as 
a last resort, a dying effort, the assignment charge 
was got up — is all as false as hell, as all this commun- 
ity must know. Sampson's ghost first made its ap- 
pearance in print, and that, too, after Keys swears 
he saw the assignment, as any one may see by 
reference to the files of papers; and Gen. Adams 
himself, in reply to the Sampson's ghost story, was 
the first man that raised the cry of toryism, and it was 
only by way of set-off, and never in seriousness, that 
it was bandied back at him. His effort is to make 
the impression that his enemies first made the charge 
of toryism and he drove them from that, then 
Sampson's ghost, he drove them from that, then 
finally the assignment charge was manufactured 



i8o The Writings of 

just before election. Now, the only general reply he 
ever made to the Sampson's ghost and tory charges 
he made at one and the same time, and not in succes- 
sion as he states; and the date of that reply will 
show, that it was made at least a month ajter the 
date on which Keys swears he saw the Anderson 
assignment. But enough. In conclusion I will only 
say that I have a character to defend as well as Gen. 
Adams, but I disdain to whine about it as he does. 
It is true I have no children nor kitchen hoys; and 
if I had, I should scorn to lug them in to make 
affidavits for me. 

A. Lincoln. 

September 6, 1837. 

TO THE PUBLIC. 
"Sangamon Journal," Springfield, 111., Oct. 28, 1837. 

Such is the turn which things have taken lately, 
that when Gen. Adams writes a book, I am expected 
to write a commentary on it. In the Republican of 
this morning he has presented the world with a new 
work of six columns in length; in consequence of 
which I must beg the room of one column in the 
Journal. It is obvious that a minute reply cannot 
be made in one column to everything that can be 
said in six; and, consequently, I hope that ex- 
pectation will be answered if I reply to such parts of 
the General's publication as are worth replying to. 

It may not be improper to remind the reader that 
in his publication of Sept. 6th General Adams said 
that the assignment charge was manufactured just 
before the election; and that in reply I proved that 



Abraham Lincoln i8i 

statement to be false by Keys, his own witness. 
Now, without attempting to explain, he furnishes me 
with another witness (Tinsley) by which the same 
thing is proved, to wit, that the assignment was not 
manufactured just before the election; but that it was 
some weeks before. Let it be borne in mind that 
Adams made this statement — ^has himself furnished 
two witnesses to prove its falsehood, and does not 
attempt to deny or explain it. Before going farther, 
let a pin be stuck here, labelled "One lie proved and 
confessed." On the 6th of September he said he had 
before stated in the hand-bill that he held an assign- 
ment dated May 20th, 1828, which in reply I pro- 
nounced to be false, and referred to the hand-bill for 
the truth of what I said. This week he forgets to 
make any explanation of this. Let another pin be 
stuck here, labelled as before. I mention these things 
because, if, when I convict him in one falsehood, he is 
permitted to shift his ground and pass it by in silence, 
there can be no end to this controversy. 

The first thing that attracts my attention in the 
General's present production is the information he 
is pleased to give to "those who are made to suffer 
at his (my) hands.'' 

Under present circumstances, this cannot apply to 
me, for I am not a widow nor an orphan: nor have I a 
wife or children who might by possibility become 
such. Such, however, I have no doubt, have been, 
and will again be made to suffer at his hands ! 
Hands! Yes, they are the mischievous agents. 
The next thing I shall notice is his favorite expres- 
sion, "not of lawyers, doctors and others," which he 



1 82 The Writings of 

is so fond of applying to all who dare expose his 
rascality. Now, let it be remembered that when he 
first came to this country he attempted to impose 
himself upon the community as a lawyer, and actually 
carried the attempt so far as to induce a man who 
was under a charge of murder to entrust the defence 
of his life in his hands, and finally took his money 
and got him hanged. Is this the man that is to 
raise a breeze in his favor by abusing lawyers? If 
he is not himself a lawyer, it is for the lack of sense, 
and not of inclination. If he is not a lawyer, he is 
a liar, for he proclaimed himself a lawyer, and got a 
man hanged by depending on him. 

Passing over such parts of the article as have 
neither fact nor argument in them, I come to the 
question asked by Adams whether any person ever 
saw the assignment in his possession. This is an 
insult to common sense. Talbott has sworn once and 
repeated time and again, that he got it out of Adams's 
possession and returned it into the same posses- 
sion. Still, as though he was addressing fools, he 
has assurance to ask if any person ever saw it in his 
possession. 

Next I quote a sentence, "Now my son Lucian 
swears that when Talbott called for the deed, that he, 
Talbott, opened it and pointed out the error.'* True. 
His son Lucian did swear as he says ; and in doing so, 
he swore what I will prove by his own affidavit to be 
a falsehood. Turn to Lucian's affidavit, and you 
will there see that Talbott called for the deed by 
which to correct an error on the record. Thus it ap- 
pears that the error in question was on the record^ 



Abraham Lincoln 183 

and not in the deed. How then could Talbott open 
the deed and point out the error? Where a thing is 
not, it cannot be pointed out. The error was not in 
the deed, and of course could not be pointed out there. 
This does not merely prove that the error could not 
be pointed out, as Lucian swore it was ; but it proves, 
too, that the deed was not opened in his presence 
with a speical view to the error, for if it had been, he 
could not have failed to see that there was no error 
in it. It is easy enough to see why Lucian swore this. 
His object was to prove that the assignment was not 
in the deed when Talbott got it: but it was dis- 
covered he could not swear this safely, without first 
swearing the deed was opened — and if he swore it was 
opened, he must show a motive for opening it, and 
the conclusion with him and his father was that 
the pointing out the error would appear the most 
plausible. 

For the purpose of showing that the assignment 
was not in the bundle when Talbott got it, is the story 
introduced into Lucian 's affidavit that the deeds 
were counted. It is a remarkable fact, and one that 
should stand as a warning to all liars and fabricat- 
ors, that in this short affidavit of Lucian 's he only 
attempted to depart from the truth, so far as I have 
the means of knowing, in two points, to wit, in the 
opening the deed and pointing out the error and the 
counting of the deeds, — ^and in both of these he caught 
himself. About the counting, he caught himself 
thus — after saying the bundle contained five deeds 
and a lease, he proceeds, "and I saw no other papers 
than the said deed and lease." First he has six 



1 84 The Writings of 

papers, and then he saw none but two; for "my son 
Lucian's" benefit, let a pin be stuck here. 

Adams again adduces the argument, that he could 
not have forged the assignment, for the reason that 
he could have had no motive for it. With those that 
know the facts there is no absence of motive. Ad- 
mitting the paper which he has filed in the suit to be 
genuine, it is clear that it cannot answer the pur- 
pose for which he designs it. Hence his motive 
for making one that he supposed would answer is 
obvious. His making the date too old is also easily 
enough accounted for. The records were not in his 
hands, and then, there being some considerable talk 
upon this particular subject, he knew he could not 
examine the records to ascertain the precise dates 
without subjecting himself to suspicion; and hence 
he concluded to try it by guess, and, as it turned out, 
missed it a little. About Miller's deposition I have 
a word to say. In the first place. Miller's answer to 
the first question shows upon its face that he had 
been tampered with, and the answer dictated to him. 
He was asked if he knew Joel Wright and James 
Adams; and above three fourths of his answer con- 
sists of what he knew about Joseph Anderson, a man 
about whom nothing had been asked, nor a word 
said in the question — a fact that can only be ac- 
counted for upon the supposition that Adams had 
secretly told him what he wished him to swear to. 

Another of Miller's answers I will prove both by 
common sense and the Court of Record is untrue. 
To one question he answers, "Anderson brought a 
suit against me before James Adams, then an acting 



Abraham Lincoln 185 

justice of the peace in Sangamon County, before 
whom he obtained a judgment. 

' ' Q. — ^Did you remove the same by injunction to the 
Sangamon Circuit Court? Ans. — I did remove it." 

Now mark — ^it is said he removed it by injunction. 
The word "injunction" in common language im- 
ports a command that some person or thing shall not 
move or be removed; in law it has the same meaning. 
An injunction issmng out of chancery to a justice of 
the peace is a command to him to stop all proceed- 
ings in a named case until further orders. It is not 
an order to remove but to stop or stay something that 
is already moving. Besides this, the records of the 
Sangamon Circuit Court show that the judgment of 
which Miller swore was never removed into said 
Court by injunction or otherwise. 

I have now to take notice of a part of Adams's 
address which in the order of time should have been 
noticed before. It is in these words: "I have now 
shown, in the opinion of two competent judges, that 
the handwriting of the forged assignment differed 
from mine, and by one of them that it could not be 
mistaken for mine.'' That is false. Tinsley no 
doubt is the judge referred to; and by reference to 
his certificate it will be seen that he did not say 
the handwriting of the assignment could not be 
mistaken for Adams's — nor did he use any other ex- 
pression substantially, or anything near substantially, 
the same. But if Tinsley had said the handwriting 
could not be mistaken for Adams's, it would have 
been equally unfortunate for Adams: for it then 
would have contradicted Keys, who says, ' ' I looked 



1 86 The Writings of 

at the writing and judged it the said Adams's or a 
good imitation." 

Adams speaks with much apparent confidence of 
his success on attending lawsuits, and the ultimate 
maintenance of his title to the land in question. With- 
out wishing to disturb the pleasure of his dream, I 
would say to him that it is not impossible that he 
may yet be taught to sing a different song in relation 
to the matter. 

At the end of Miller's deposition, Adams asks, 
"Will Mr. Lincoln now say that he is almost con- 
vinced my title to this ten acre tract of land is 
founded in fraud?" I answer, I will not. I will 
now change the phraseology so as to make it run 
— I am quite convinced, &c. I cannot pass in silence 
Adams's assertion that he has proved that the forged 
assignment was not in the deed when it came from 
his house by Talbott, the recorder. In this, al- 
though Talbott has sworn that the assignment was 
in the bundle of deeds when it came from his house, 
Adams has the unaccountable assurance to say that 
he has proved the contrary by Talbott. Let him 
or his friends attempt to show wherein he proved 
any such thing by Talbott. 

In his publication of the 6th of September he 
hinted to Talbott, that he might be mistaken. In his 
present, speaking of Talbott and me he says ''They 
may have been imposed upon.'' Can any man of the 
least penetration fail to see the object of this ? After 
he has stormed and raged till he hopes and imagines 
he has got us a little scared he wishes to softly 
whisper in our ears, "If you'll quit I will." If he 



Abraham Lincoln 187 

could get us to say that some unknown, undefined 
being had slipped the assignment into our hands 
without our knowledge, not a doubt remains but that 
he would immediately discover that we were the 
purest men on earth. This is the ground he evidently 
wishes us to understand he is willing to compromise 
upon. But we ask no such charity at his hands. 
We are neither mistaken nor imposed upon. We have 
made the statements we have because we know them 
to be true and we choose to live or die by them. 

Esq. Carter, who is Adams's friend, personal and 
political, will recollect, that, on the 5th of this month, 
he (Adams), with a great affectation of modesty, 
declared that he would never introduce his own 
child as a witness. Notwithstanding this affectation 
of modesty, he has in his present publication intro- 
duced his child as witness; and as if to show with 
how much contempt he could treat his own declara- 
tion, he has had this same Esq. Carter to administer 
the oath to him. And so important a witness does 
he consider him, and so entirely does the whole of 
his entire present production depend upon the testi- 
mony of his child, that in it he has mentioned "my 
son," "my son Lucian," "Lucian, my son," and the 
like expressions no less than fifteen different times. 
Let it be remembered here, that I have shown the 
affidavit of "my darUng son Lucian" to be false by 
the evidence apparent on its own face; and I now 
ask, if that affidavit be taken away what foundation 
will the fabric have left to stand upon ? 

General Adams's publications and out-door ma- 
noeuvring, taken in connection with the editorial 



1 88 The Writings of 

articles of the Republican, are not more foolish and 
contradictory than they are ludicrous and amusing. 
One week the Republican notifies the public that 
Gen. Adams is preparing an instrument that will 
tear, rend, split, rive, blow up, confound, overwhelm, 
annihilate, extinguish, exterminate, burst asunder, 
and grind to powder all its slanderers, and particu- 
larly Talbott and Lincoln — ^all of which is to be done 
in due time. 

Then for two or three weeks all is calm — ^not a 
word said. Again the Republican comes forth with 
a mere passing remark that "public" opinion has 
decided in favor of Gen. Adams, and intimates that 
he will give himself no more trouble about the matter. 
In the meantime Adams himself is prowling about 
and, as Bums says of the devil, "For prey, and holes 
and comers tryin'," and in one instance goes so 
far as to take an old acquaintance of mine several 
steps from a crowd and, apparently weighed down 
with the importance of his business, gravely and 
solemnly asks him if ''he ever heard Lincoln say he 
was a deist.'' 

Anon the Republican comes again: "We invite the 
attention of the public to General Adams's com- 
munication,' ' &c. ' ' The victory is a great one, the tri- 
umph is overwhelming." I really believe the editor 
of the Illinois Republican is fool enough to think 
General Adams leads off — "Authors most egregiously 
mistaken, &c. Alost wofully shall their presumption 
be punished," &c. (Lord have mercy on us.) " The 
hour is yet to come, yea, nigh at hand — (how long 
first do you reckon ?) — when the Journal and its junto 



Abraham Lincoln 189 

shall say, I have appeared too early. " " Their infamy 
shall he laid hare to the public gaze.'' Suddenly the 
General appears to relent at the severity with which 
he is treating us and he exclaims : ' ' The condem- 
nation of my enemies is the inevitable result of my own 
defense.'' For your health's sake, dear Gen., do not 
permit your tenderness of heart to afflict you so 
much on our account. For some reason (perhaps 
because we are killed so quickly) we shall never be 
sensible of our suffering. 

Farewell, General. I will see you again at court if 
not before — ^when and where we will settle the ques- 
tion whether you or the widow shall have the land. 

A. Lincoln. 

October i8, 1837. 



TO MRS. O. H. BROWNING. 

Springfield, April i, 1838. 

Dear Madam: — ^Without apologizing for being 
egotistical, I shall make the history of so much of my 
life as has elapsed since I saw you the subject of this 
letter. And, by the way, I now discover that, in 
order to give a full and intelligible account of the 
things I have done and suffered since I saw you, I 
shall necessarily have to relate some that happened 
before. 

It was, then, in the autumn of 1836 that a married 
lady of my acquaintance, and who was a great friend 
of mine, being about to pay a visit to her father and 
other relatives residing in Kentucky, proposed to me 



190 The Writings of 

that on her return she would bring a sister of hers 
with her on condition that I would engage to become 
her brother-in-law with all convenient despatch. 
I, of course, accepted the proposal, for you know I 
could not have done otherwise had I really been 
averse to it; but privately, between you and me, I 
was most confoundedly well pleased with the pro- 
ject. I had seen the said sister some three years 
before, thought her intelligent and agreeable, and 
saw no good objection to plodding life through hand 
in hand with her. Time passed on; the lady took 
her journey and in due time returned, sister in com- 
pany, sure enough. This astonished me a little, for 
it appeared to me that her coming so readily showed 
that she was a trifle too willing, but on reflection it 
occurred to me that she might have been prevailed 
on by her married sister to come without anything 
concerning me ever having been mentioned to her, 
and so I concluded that if no other objection pre- 
sented itself, I would consent to waive this. All 
this occurred to me on hearing of her arrival in 
the neighborhood — for, be it remembered, I had not 
yet seen her, except about three years previous, as 
above mentioned. In a few days we had an inter- 
view, and, although I had seen her before, she did 
not look as my imagination had pictured her. I 
knew she was over-size, but she now appeared a fair 
match for Falstaff. I knew she was called an "old 
maid," and I felt no doubt of the truth of at least 
half of the appellation, but now, when I beheld her, 
I could not for my life avoid thinking of my mother ; 
and this, not from withered features, — for her skin 



Abraham Lincoln 191 

was too full of fat to permit of its contracting into 
wrinkles, — but from her want of teeth, weather- 
beaten appearance in general, and from a kind of 
notion that ran in my head that nothing could have 
commenced at the size of infancy and reached her 
present bulk in less than thirty-five or forty years; 
and, in short, I was not at all pleased with her. But 
what could I do ? I had told her sister that I would 
take her for better or for worse, and I made a point 
of honor and conscience in all things to stick to my 
word, especially if others had been induced to act 
on it, which in this case I had no doubt they had, for 
I was now fairly convinced that no other man 
on earth would have her, and hence the conclusion 
that they were bent on holding me to my bargain. 
"Well," thought I, "I have said it, and, be the con- 
sequences what they may, it shall not be my fault if I 
fail to do it." At once I determined to consider her 
my wife ; and, this done, all my powers of discovery 
were put to work in search of perfections in her which 
might be fairly set off against her defects. I tried to 
imagine her handsome, which, but for her unfortu- 
nate corpulency, was actually true. Exclusive of 
this, no woman that I have ever seen has a finer face. 
I also tried to convince myself that the mind was 
much more to be valued than the person ; and in this 
she was not inferior, as I could discover, to any with 
whom I had been acquainted. 

Shortly after this, without coming to any posi- 
tive understanding with her, I set out for Vandalia, 
when and where you first saw me. During my stay 
there I had letters from her which did not change 



192 The Writings of 

my opinion of either her intellect or intention, but 
on the contrary confirmed it in both. 

All this while, although I was fixed, "firm as 
the surge-repelling rock," in my resolution, I found 
I was continually repenting the rashness which had 
led me to make it. Through life, I have been in 
no bondage, either real or imaginary, from the thral- 
dom of which I so much desired to be free. After 
my return home, I saw nothing to change my opin- 
ions of her in any particular. She was the same, 
and so was I. I now spent my time in planning how 
I might get along through life after my contem- 
plated change of circumstances should have taken 
place, and how I might procrastinate the evil day 
for a time, which I really dreaded as much, perhaps 
more, than an Irishman does the halter. 

After all my suffering upon this deeply interest- 
ing subject, here I am, wholly, unexpectedly, com- 
pletely, out of the "scrape"; and now I want to 
know if you can guess how I got out of it — out, 
clear, in every sense of the term; no violation of 
word, honor, or conscience. I don't believe you can 
guess, and so I might as well tell you at once. As 
the lawyer says, it was done in the manner follow- 
ing, to wit: After I had delayed the matter as long 
as I thought I could in honor do (which, by the 
way, had brought me round into the last fall), I 
concluded I might as well bring it to a consumma- 
tion without further delay; and so I mustered my 
resolution, and made the proposal to her direct; 
but, shocking to relate, she answered. No. At first 
I supposed she did it through an affectation of 



Abraham Lincoln 193 

modesty, which I thought but ill became her under 
the peculiar circumstances of her case; but on my 
renewal of the charge, I found she repelled it with 
greater firmness than before. I tried it again and 
again, but with the same success, or rather with the 
same want of success. 

I finally was forced to give it up; at which I 
very unexpectedly found myself mortified almost 
beyond endurance. I was mortified, it seemed to 
me, in a hundred different ways. My vanity was 
deeply wounded by the reflection that I had been too 
stupid to discover her intentions, and at the same 
time never doubting that I understood them perfect- 
ly, and also that she, whom I had taught myself 
to believe nobody else would have, had actually 
rejected me with all my fancied greatness. And, to 
cap the whole, I then for the first time began to 
suspect that I was really a little in love with her. 
But let it all go. I '11 try and outlive it. Others 
have been made fools of by the girls, but this can 
never with truth be said of me. I most emphati- 
cally, in this instance, made a fool of myself. I have 
now come to the conclusion never again to think of 
marrying, and for this reason : I can never be satisfied 
with any one who would be blockhead enough to 
have me. 

When you receive this, write me a long yam 
about something to amuse me. Give my respects to 
Mr. Browning. 

Yoiir sincere friend, 

A. Lincoln. 

Vol.. I. — 13. 



194 The Writings of 

REMARKS IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 
In the House of Representatives, January 17, 1839. 

Mr. Lincoln, from Committee on Finance, to 
which the subject was referred, made a report on the 
subject of purchasing of the United States all the 
imsold lands lying within the limits of the State of 
Illinois, accompanied by resolutions that this State 
propose to purchase all unsold lands at twenty-five 
cents per acre, and pledging the faith of the State to 
carry the proposal into effect if the government 
accept the same within two years. 

Mr. Lincoln thought the resolutions ought to be 
seriously considered. In reply to the gentleman 
from Adams, he said that it was not to enrich the 
State. The price of the lands may be raised, it was 
thought by some; by others, that it would be re- 
duced. The conclusion in his mind was that the 
representatives in this Legislature from the country 
in which the lands lie would be opposed to raising 
the price, because it would operate against the settle- 
ment of the lands. He referred to the lands in the 
military tract. They had fallen into the hands of 
large speculators in consequence of the low price. 
He was opposed to a low price of land. He thought 
it was adverse to the interests of the poor settler, 
because speculators buy them up. He was opposed 
to a reduction of the price of public lands. 

Mr. Lincoln referred to some official documents 
emanating from Indiana, and compared the pro- 
gressive population of the two States. Illinois had 



Abraham Lincoln 195 

gained upon that State under the public land system 
as it is. His conclusion was that ten years from this 
time Illinois would have no more public land unsold 
than Indiana now has. He referred also to Ohio. 
That State had sold nearly all her public lands. 
She was but twenty years ahead of us, and as our 
lands were equally salable — more so, as he main- 
tained — ^we should have no more twenty years from 
now than she has at present. 

Mr. Lincoln referred to the canal lands, and sup- 
posed that the policy of the State would be different 
in regard to them, if the representatives from that sec- 
tion of country could themselves choose the policy; 
but the representatives from other parts of the State 
had a veto upon it, and regulated the policy. He 
thought that if the State had all the lands, the policy 
of the Legislature would be more liberal to all sections. 

He referred to the policy of the General Govern- 
ment. He thought that if the national debt had not 
been paid, the expenses of the government would 
not have doubled, as they had done since that debt 
was paid. 



TO ROW. 

Springfield, June ii. 1839. 

Dear Row: 

Mr. Redman informs me that you wish me to 
write you the particulars of a conversation between 
Dr. Felix and myself relative to you. The Dr. 
overtook me between Rushville and Beardstown. 

He, after learning that I had lived at Springfield, 



196 The Writings of 

asked if I was acquainted with you. I told him I was. 
He said you had lately been elected constable in 
Adams, but that you never would be again. I asked 
him why. He said the people there had found out 
that you had been sheriff or deputy sheriff in 
Sangamon County, and that you came off and left 
your securities to suffer. He then asked me if I did 
not know such to be the fact. I told him I did not 
think you had ever been sheriff or deputy sheriff in 
Sangamon, but that I thought you had been con- 
stable. I further told him that if you had left your 
securities to suffer in that or any other case, I had 
never heard of it, and that if it had been so, I thought 
I would have heard of it. 

If the Dr. is telling that I told him anything against 
you whatever, I authorize you to contradict it flatly. 
We have no news here. 

Your friend, as ever, 

A. Lincoln. 



SPEECH AT A POLITICAL DISCUSSION IN THE HALL OF 

THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AT 

SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS. 

December [20 ?], 1839. 

(From a pamphlet copy in possession of Hon. T. J. 
Henderson, Illinois.) 

Fellow-Citizens: — It is peculiarly embarrassing 
to me to attempt a continuance of the discussion, on 
this evening, which has been conducted in this hall 
on several preceding ones. It is so because on each 



Abraham Lincoln 197 

of those evenings there was a much fuller attendance 
than now, without any reason for its being so, except 
the greater interest the community feel in the 
speakers who addressed them then than they do in 
him who is to do so now. I am, indeed, apprehen- 
sive that the few who have attended have done so 
more to spare me mortification than in the hope of 
being interested in anything I may be able to say. 
This circumstance casts a damp upon my spirits, 
which I am sure I shall be unable to overcome dur- 
ing the evening. But enough of preface. 

The subject heretofore and now to be discussed 
is the subtreasury scheme of the present administra- 
tion, as a means of collecting, safe-keeping, transfer- 
ring, and disbursing, the revenues of the nation, as 
contrasted with a national bank for the same pur- 
poses. Mr. Douglas has said that we (the Whigs) 
have not dared to meet them (the Locos) in argument 
on this question. I protest against this assertion. 
I assert that we have again and again, during this 
discussion, urged facts and arguments against the 
subtreasury which they have neither dared to deny 
nor attempted to answer. But lest some may be led 
to believe that we really wish to avoid the question, 
I now propose, in my humble way, to urge those 
arguments again; at the same time begging the 
audience to mark well the positions I shall take and 
the proof I shall offer to sustain them, and that they 
will not again permit Mr. Douglas or his friends to 
escape the force of them by a round and groundless 
assertion that we "dare not meet them in argument." 

Of the subtreasury, then, as contrasted with a 



19^ The Writings of 

national bank for the before-enumerated purposes, 
I lay down the following propositions, to wit: (i) 
It will injuriously affect the community by its opera- 
tion on the circulating medium. (2) It will be a 
more expensive fiscal agent. (3) It will be a less 
secure depository of the public money. To show 
the truth of the first proposition, let us take a short 
review of our condition under the operation of a 
national bank. It was the depository of the public 
revenues. Between the collection of those revenues 
and the disbursement of them by the government, 
the bank was permitted to and did actually loan 
them out to individuals, and hence the large amount 
of money actually collected for revenue purposes, 
which by any other plan would have been idle a 
great portion of the time, was kept almost constantly 
in circulation. Any person who will reflect that 
money is only valuable while in circulation will 
readily perceive that any device which will keep the 
government revenues in constant circulation, instead 
of being locked up in idleness, is no inconsiderable 
advantage. By the subtreasury the revenue is to be 
collected and kept in iron boxes until the govern- 
ment wants it for disbursement; thus robbing the 
people of the use of it, while the government does not 
itself need it, and while the money is performing no 
nobler office than that of rusting in iron boxes. 
The natural effect of this change of policy, every one 
will see, is to reduce the quantity of money in circu- 
lation. But, again, by the subtreasury scheme the 
revenue is to be collected in specie. I anticipate 
that this will be disputed. I expect to hear it said 



Abraham Lincoln 199 

that it is not the poHcy of the administration to 
collect the revenue in specie. If it shall, I reply that 
Mr. Van Buren, in his message recommending the 
subtreasury, expended nearly a column of that 
document in an attempt to persuade Congress to 
provide for the collection of the revenue in specie 
exclusively; and he concludes with these words: 
"It may be safely assumed that no motive of con- 
venience to the citizens requires the reception of 
bank paper." In addition to this, Mr. Silas Wright, 
Senator from New York, and the political, personal 
and confidential friend of Mr. Van Buren, drafted 
and introduced into the Senate the first subtreasury 
bill, and that bill provided for ultimately collecting 
the revenue in specie. It is true, I know, that that 
clause was stricken from the bill, but it was done by 
the votes of the Whigs, aided by a portion only of 
the Van Buren senators. No subtreasury bill has 
yet become a law, though two or three have been 
considered by Congress, some with and some without 
the specie clause; so that I admit there is room for 
quibbling upon the question of whether the admin- 
istration favor the exclusive specie doctrine or not; 
but I take it that the fact that the President at 
first urged the specie doctrine, and that under his 
recommendation the first bill introduced embraced it, 
warrants us in charging it as the policy of the party 
imtil their head as publicly recants it as he at first 
espoused it. I repeat, then, that by the subtreasury 
the revenue is to be collected in specie. Now mark 
what the effect of this must be. By all estimates 
ever made there are but between sixty and eighty 



200 The Writings of 

millions of specie in the United States. The ex- 
penditures of the Government for the year 1838 — • 
the last for which we have had the report — ^were 
forty millions. Thus it is seen that if the whole 
revenue be collected in specie, it will take more than 
half of all the specie in the nation to do it. By this 
means more than half of all the specie belonging to 
the fifteen millions of souls who compose the whole 
population of the country is thrown into the hands 
of the public office-holders, and other public creditors 
comprising in number perhaps not more than one 
quarter of a million, leaving the other fourteen 
millions and three quarters to get along as they best 
can, with less than one half of the specie of the 
country, and whatever rags and shinplasters they 
may be able to put, and keep, in circulation. By 
this means, every office-holder and other public 
creditor may, and most likely will, set up shaver; 
and a most glorious harvest will the specie-men have 
of it, — each specie-man, upon a fair division, having 
to his share the fleecing of about fifty-nine rag-men. 
In all candor let me ask, was such a system for 
benefiting the few at the expense of the many ever 
before devised? And was the sacred name of 
Democracy ever before made to indorse such an 
enormity against the rights of the people ? 

I have already said that the subtreasury will 
reduce the quantity of money in circulation. This 
position is strengthened by the recollection that the 
revenue is to be collected in specie, so that the mere 
amount of revenue is not all that is withdrawn, 
but the amount of paper circulation that the forty 



Abraham Lincoln 201 

millions would serve as a basis to is withdrawn, which 
would be in a sound state at least one hundred 
millions. When one hundred millions, or more, of 
the circulation we now have shall be withdrawn, 
who can contemplate without terror the distress, 
ruin, bankruptcy, and beggary that must follow? 
The man who has purchased any article — say a 
horse — on credit, at one hundred dollars, when there 
are two hundred millions circulating in the country, 
if the quantity be reduced to on^ hundred millions 
by the arrival of pay-day, will find the horse but 
sufficient to pay half the debt; and the other half 
must either be paid out of his other means, and 
thereby become a clear loss to him, or go unpaid, 
and thereby become a clear loss to his creditor. 
What I have here said of a single case of the purchase 
of a horse will hold good in every case of a debt 
existing at the time a reduction in the quantity of 
money occurs, by whomsoever, and for whatsoever, 
it may have been contracted. It may be said that 
what the debtor loses the creditor gains by this 
operation; but on examination this will be found 
true only to a very limited extent. It is more 
generally true that all lose by it — the creditor by 
losing more of his debts than he gains by the in- 
creased value of those he collects; the debtor by 
either parting with more of his property to pay his 
debts than he received in contracting them, or by 
entirely breaking up his business, and thereby being 
thrown upon the world in idleness. 

The general distress thus created will, to be sure, 
be temporary, because, whatever change may occur 



202 The Writings of 

in the quantity of money in any community, time 
will adjust the derangement produced; but while 
that adjustment is progressing, all suffer more or 
less, and very many lose everything that renders 
life desirable. Why, then, shall we suffer a severe 
difficulty, even though it be but temporary, unless 
we receive some equivalent for it ? 

What I have been saying as to the effect produced 
by a reduction of the quantity of money relates to the 
whole country. I now propose to show that it would 
produce a peculiar and permanent hardship upon the 
citizens of those States and Territories in which the 
public lands lie. The land-ofhces in those States and 
Territories, as all know, form the great gulf by which 
all, or nearly all, the money in them is swallowed up. 
When the quantity of money shall be reduced, and 
consequently everything under individual control 
brought down in proportion, the price of those lands, 
being fixed by law, will remain as now. Of necessity 
it will follow that the produce or labor that now 
raises money sufficient to purchase eighty acres will 
then raise but sufficient to purchase forty, or perhaps 
not that much ; and this difficulty and hardship will 
last as long, in some degree, as any portion of these 
lands shall remain undisposed of. Knowing, as I 
well do, the difficulty that poor people now encounter 
in procuring homes, I hesitate not to say that when 
the price of the public lands shall be doubled or 
trebled, or, which is the same thing, produce and 
labor cut down to one half or one third of their 
present prices, it will be little less than impossible 
for them to procure those homes at all. 



Abraham Lincoln 203 

In answer to what I have said as to the effect the 
subtreasury would have upon the currency, it is 
often urged that the money collected for revenue 
purposes will not lie idle in the vaults ot the treasury ; 
and, farther, that a national bank produces greater 
derangement in the currency, by a system of con- 
tractions and expansions, than the subtreasury 
would produce in any way. In reply, I need only 
show that experience proves the contrary of both 
these propositions. It is an undisputed fact that the 
late Bank of the United States paid the government 
$75,000 annually for the privilege of using the public 
money between the times of its collection and dis- 
bursement. Can any man suppose that the bank 
would have paid this sum annually for twenty years, 
and then offered to renew its obligations to do so, if 
in reality there was no time intervening between the 
collection and disbursement of the revenue, and con- 
sequently no privilege of using the money extended 
to it? Again, as to the contractions and expansions 
of a national bank, I need only point to the period 
intervening between the time that the late bank got 
into successful operation and that at which the 
government commenced war upon it, to show that 
during that period no such contractions or expan- 
sions took place. If, before or after that period, 
derangement occurred in the currency, it proves 
nothing. The bank could not be expected to regu- 
late the currency either before it got into successful 
operation or after it was crippled and thrown into 
death convulsions, by the removal of the deposits from 
it, and other hostile measures of the government 



204 The Writings of 

against it. We do not pretend that a national bank 
can estabHsh and maintain a sound and uniform 
state of currency in the country, in spite of the 
National Government; but we do say that it has 
established and maintained such a currency, and can 
do so again, by the aid of that government; and we 
further say that no duty is more imperative on that 
government than the duty it owes the people of 
furnishing them a sound and uniform currency. 

I now leave the proposition as to the effect of the 
subtreasury upon the currency of the country, and 
pass to that relative to the additional expense which 
must be incurred by it over that incurred by a 
national bank as a fiscal agent of the government. 
By the late national bank we had the public revenue 
received, safely kept, transferred, and disbursed, 
not only without expense, but we actually received 
of the bank $75,000 annually for its privileges while 
rendering us those services. By the subtreasury, 
according to the estimate of the Secretary of the 
Treasury, who is the warm advocate of the system 
(and which estimate is the lowest made by any one), 
the same services are to cost $60,000. Mr. Rives, 
who, to say the least, is equally talented and honest, 
estimates that these services, under the subtreasury 
system, cannot cost less than $600,000. For the sake 
of liberality, let us suppose that the estimates of the 
secretary and Mr. Rives are the two extremes, and 
that their mean is about the true estimate, and we 
shall then find that when to that sum is added the 
$75,000 which the bank paid us, the difference 
between the two systems, in favor of the bank and 



Abraham Lincoln 205 

against the subtreasury, is $405,000 a year. This 
sum, though small when compared to the many 
milhons annually expended by the General Govern- 
ment, is, when viewed by itself, very large; and 
much too large, when viewed in any light, to be 
thrown away once a year for nothing. It is sufficient 
to pay the pensions of more than four thousand 
Revolutionary soldiers, or to purchase a forty-acre 
tract of government land for each one of more than 
eight thousand poor families. 

To the argument against the subtreasury on the 
score of additional expense, its friends, so far as I 
know, attempt no answer. They choose, so far as I 
can learn, to treat the throwing away of $405,000 
once a year as a matter entirely too small to merit 
their Democratic notice. 

I now come to the proposition that it would be less 
secure than a national bank as a depository of the 
public money. The experience of the past, I think, 
proves the truth of this. And here, inasmuch as I 
rely chiefly upon experience to establish it, let me 
ask how is it that we know anything — that any 
event will occur, that any combination of circum- 
stances will produce a certain result — except by 
the analogies of past experience? What has once 
happened will invariably happen again when the 
same circumstances which combined to produce it 
shall again combine in the same way. We all feel 
that we know that a blast of wind would extinguish 
the flame of the candle that stands by me. How do 
we know it? We have never seen this flame thus 
extinguished. We know it because we have seen 



2o6 The Writings of 

through all our lives that a blast of wind extinguishes 
the flame of a candle whenever it is thrown fully upon 
it. Again, we all feel to know that we have to die. 
How? We have never died yet. We know it be- 
cause we know, or at least think we know, that of all 
the beings, just like ourselves, who have been coming 
into the world for six thousand years, not one is now 
living who was here two hundred years ago. I 
repeat, then, that we know nothing of what will 
happen in future, but by the analogy of experience, 
and that the fair analogy of past experience fully 
proves that the subtreasury would be a less safe 
depository of the public money than a national bank. 
Examine it. By the subtreasury scheme the public 
money is to be kept, between the times of its collec- 
tion and disbursement, by treasurers of the mint, 
custom-house officers, land officers, and some new 
officers to be appointed in the same way that those 
first enumerated are. Has a year passed, since the 
organization of the government, that numerous 
defalcations have not occurred among this class of 
officers? Look at Swartwout with his $1,200,000, 
Price with his $75,000, Harris with his $109,000, 
Hawkins with his $100,000, Linn with his $55,000, 
together with some twenty-five hundred lesser lights. 
Place the public money again in these same hands, 
and will it not again go the same way? Most as- 
suredly it will. But turn to the history of the 
national banks in this country, and we shall there 
see that those banks performed the fiscal operations 
of the government through a period of forty years, 
received, safely kept, transferred, disbursed an 



Abraham Lincoln 207 

aggregate of nearly five hundred millions of dollars; 
and that, in all this time, and with all that money, 
not one dollar, nor one cent, did the government lose 
by them. Place the public money again in a similar 
depository, and will it not again be safe? But, con- 
clusive as the experience of fifty years is that indi- 
viduals are imsafe depositories of the public money, 
and of forty years that national banks are safe de- 
positories, we are not left to rely solely upon that 
experience for the truth of those propositions. If 
experience were silent upon the subject, conclusive 
reasons could be shown for the truth of them. 

It is often urged that to say the public money will 
be more secure in a national bank than in the hands 
of individuals, as proposed in the subtreasury, is to 
say that bank directors and bank officers are more 
honest than sworn officers of the government. Not 
so. We insist on no such thing. We say that public 
officers, selected with reference to their capacity and 
honesty (which, by the way, we deny is the practice 
in these days), stand an equal chance, precisely, of 
being capable and honest with bank officers selected 
by the same rule. We further say that, with how- 
ever much care selections may be made, there will be 
some unfaithful and dishonest in both classes. The 
experience of the whole world, in all bygone times, 
proves this true. The Saviour of the world chose 
twelve disciples, and even one of that small number, 
selected by superhuman wisdom, turned out a traitor 
and a devil. And it may not be improper here to add 
that Judas carried the bag — was the subtreasurer of 
the Saviour and His disciples. We, then, do not say 



2o8 The Writings of 

— ^nor need we say to maintain our proposition — 
that bank officers are more honest than government 
officers selected by the same rule. What we do say 
is that the interest of the subtreasurer is against his 
duty, while the interest of the bank is on the side of 
its duty. Take instances : A subtreasurer has in his 
hands one hundred thousand dollars of public money ; 
his duty says, "You ought to pay this money over," 
but his interest says, "You ought to run away with 
this sum, and be a nabob the balance of your life." 
And who that knows anything of human nature 
doubts that in many instances interest will prevail 
over duty, and that the subtreasurer will prefer 
opulent knavery in a foreign land to honest poverty 
at home? But how different is it with a bank. 
Besides the government money deposited with it, 
it is doing business upon a large capital of its own. 
If it proves faithful to the government, it continues 
its business; if unfaithful, it forfeits its charter, 
breaks up its business, and thereby loses more than 
all it can make by seizing upon the government 
funds in its possession. Its interest, therefore, is on 
the side of its duty — is to be faithful to the govern- 
ment — and consequently even the dishonest amongst 
its managers have no temptation to be faithless to 
it. Even if robberies happen in the bank, the losses 
are borne by the bank, and the government loses 
nothing. It is for this reason, then, that we say a 
bank is the more secure. It is because of that 
admirable feature in the bank system which places 
the interest and the duty of the depository both on 
one side; whereas that feature can never enter into 



Abraham Lincoln 209 

the subtreasury system. By the latter the interest 
of the individuals keeping the public money will 
wage an eternal war with their duty, and in very 
many instances must be victorious. In answer to 
the argument drawn from the fact that individual 
depositories of public money have always proved 
unsafe, it is urged that, even if we had a national 
bank, the money has to pass through the same 
individual hands that it will under the subtreasury. 
This is only partially true in fact, and wholly fal- 
lacious in argument. It is only partially true in fact, 
because by the subtreasury bill four receivers-general 
are to be appointed by the President and Senate. 
These are new officers, and consequently it cannot 
be true that the money, or any portion of it, has 
heretofore passed through their hands. These four 
new officers are to be located at New York, Boston, 
Charleston, and St. Louis, and consequently are to be 
depositories of all the money collected at or near 
those points ; so that more than three fourths of the 
public money will fall into the keeping of these four 
new officers, who did not exist as officers under the 
national-bank system. It is only partially true, 
then, that the money passes through the same hands, 
under a national bank, as it would do under the 
subtreasury. It is true that under either system 
individuals must be employed as collectors of the 
customs, receivers at the land-offices, etc., but the 
difference is that under the bank system the receivers 
of all sorts receive the money and pay it over to the 
bank once a week when the collections are large, and 
once a month when they are small ; whereas by the 

VOL. I. 14. 



2IO The Writings of 

subtreasury system individuals are not only to col- 
lect the money, but they are to keep it also, or pay it 
over to other individuals equally unsafe as them- 
selves, to be by them kept until it is wanted for dis- 
bursement. It is during the time that it is thus lying 
idle in their hands that opportunity is afforded and 
temptation held out to them to embezzle and escape 
with it. By the bank system each collector or re- 
ceiver is to deposit in bank all the money in his 
hands at the end of each month at most, and to send 
the bank certificates of deposit to the Secretary of 
the Treasury. Whenever that certificate of deposit 
fails to arrive at the proper time, the secretary knows 
that the officer thus failing is acting the knave; and, 
if he is himself disposed to do his duty, he has him 
immediately removed from office, and thereby cuts 
him off from the possibility of embezzling but little 
more than the receipts of a single month. But by the 
subtreasury system the money is to lie month after 
month in the hands of individuals; larger amounts 
are to accumulate in the hands of the receivers-general 
and some others, by perhaps ten to one, than ever 
accumulated in the hands of individuals before ; yet 
during all this time, in relation to this great stake, 
the Secretary of the Treasury can comparatively 
know nothing. Reports, to be sure, he will have; 
but reports are often false, and always false when 
made by a knave to cloak his knavery. Long ex- 
perience has shown that nothing short of an actual 
demand of the money will expose an adroit peculator. 
Ask him for reports, arid he will give them to your 
heart's content ; send agents to examine and count 



Abraham Lincoln 211 

the money in his hands, and he will borrow of a friend, 
merely to be counted and then returned, a sufficient 
sum to make the sum square. Try what you will, it 
will all fail till you demand the money; then, and 
not till then, the truth will come. 

The sum of the whole matter I take to be this: 
Under the bank system, while sums of money, by the 
law, were permitted to lie in the hands of individuals 
for very short periods only, many and very large 
defalcations occurred by those individuals. Under 
the subtreasury system much larger sums are to lie 
in the hands of individuals for much longer periods, 
thereby multiplying temptation in proportion as the 
sums are larger, and multiplying opportunity in pro- 
portion as the periods are longer to and for those 
individuals to embezzle and escape with the public 
treasure; and therefore, just in the proportion that 
the temptation and the opportunity are greater under 
the subtreasury than the bank system, will the pecu- 
lations and defalcations be greater under the former 
than they have been under the latter. The truth of 
this, independent of actual experience, is but little 
less than self-evident. I therefore leave it. 

But it is said, and truly too, that there is to be a 
penitentiary department to the subtreasury. This, 
the advocates of the system will have it, will be a 
"king cure-all." Before I go farther, may I not ask 
if the penitentiary department is not itself an ad- 
mission that they expect the public money to be 
stolen ? Why build the cage if they expect to catch 
no birds ? But as to the question how effectual the 
penitentiary will be in preventing defalcations: 



212 The Writings of 

How effectual have penitentiaries heretofore been 
in preventing the crimes they were established, to 
suppress? Has not confinement in them long been 
the legal penalty of larceny, forgery, robbery, and 
many other crimes, in almost all the States? And 
yet are not those crimes committed weekly, daily, — 
nay, and even hourly, — in every one of those States? 
Again, the gallows has long been the penalty of 
murder, and yet we scarcely open a newspaper that 
does not relate a new case of that crime. If, then, 
the penitentiary has ever heretofore failed to prevent 
larceny, forgery, and robbery, and the gallows and 
halter have likewise failed to prevent murder, by 
what process of reasoning, I ask, is it that we are to 
conclude the penitentiary will hereafter prevent the 
stealing of the public money? But our opponents 
seem to think they answer the charge that the money 
will be stolen fully if they can show that they will 
bring the offenders to punishment. Not so. Will 
the punishment of the thief bring back the stolen 
money ? No more so than the hanging of a murderer 
restores his victim to life. What is the object 
desired? Certainly not the greatest number of 
thieves we can catch, but that the money may not be 
stolen. If, then, any plan can be devised for deposit- 
ing the public treasure where it will never be stolen, 
never embezzled, is not that the plan to be adopted ? 
Turn, then, to a national bank, and you have that 
plan, fully and completely successful, as tested by 
the experience of forty years. 

I have now done with the three propositions that 
the subtreasury would injuriously affect the currency 



Abraham Lincoln 213 

and would be more expensive and less secure as a 
depository of the public money than a national bank. 
How far I have succeeded in establishing their truth, 
is for others to judge. Omitting, for want of time, 
what I had intended to say as to the effect of the sub- 
treasury to bring the public money under the more 
immediate control of the President than it has ever 
heretofore been, I now ask the audience, when Mr. 
Calhoun shall answer me, to hold him to the ques- 
tions. Permit him not to escape them. Require 
him either to show that the subtreasury would not 
injuriously affect the currency, or that we should in 
some way receive an equivalent for that injurious 
effect. Require him either to show that the sub- 
treasury would not be more expensive as a fiscal 
agent than a bank, or that we should in some way 
be compensated for that additional expense. And 
particularly require him to show that the public 
money would be as secure in the subtreasury as in 
a national bank, or that the additional insecurity 
would be overbalanced by some good result of the 
proposed change. 

No one of them, in my humble judgment, will he 
be able to do ; and I venture the prediction, and ask 
that it may be especially noted, that he will not 
attempt to answer the proposition that the sub- 
treasury would be more expensive than a national 
bank as a fiscal agent of the government. 

As a sweeping objection to a national bank, and 
consequently an argument in favor of the subtreas- 
ury as a substitute for it, it often has been urged, 
and doubtless will be again, that such a bank is 



214 The Writings of 

unconstitutional. We have often heretofore shown, 
and therefore need not in detail do so again, that a 
majority of the Revolutionary patriarchs, who ever 
acted officially upon the question, commencing with 
General Washington, and embracing General Jack- 
son, the larger number of the signers of the Declara- 
tion, and of the framers of the Constitution, who 
were in the Congress of 1 79 1 , have decided upon their 
oaths that such a bank is constitutional. We have 
also shown that the votes of Congress have more 
often been in favor of than against its constitution- 
ality. In addition to all this, we have shown that 
the Supreme Court — that tribunal which the Con- 
stitution has itself established to decide constitu- 
tional questions — ^has solemnly decided that such a 
bank is constitutional. Protesting that these au- 
thorities ought to settle the question, — ought to be 
conclusive, — I will not urge them further now. I 
now propose to take a view of the question which I 
have not known to be taken by any one before. It 
is that whatever objection ever has or ever can be 
made to the constitutionality of a bank will apply 
with equal force, in its whole length, breadth, and 
proportions, to the subtreasury. Our opponents say 
there is no express authority in the Constitution to 
establish a bank, and therefore a bank is uncon- 
stitutional; but we with equal truth may say there 
is no express authority in the Constitution to estab- 
lish a subtreasury, and therefore a subtreasury is 
imconstitutional. Who, then, has the advantage of 
this "express authority" argument? Does it not 
cut equally both ways ? Does it not wound them as 



Abraham Lincoln 215 

deeply and as deadly as it does us? Our position 
is that both are constitutional. The Constitution 
enumerates expressly several powers which Congress 
may exercise, superadded to which is a general 
authority "to make all laws necessary and proper" 
for carrying into effect all the powers vested by the 
Constitution in the Government of the United States. 
One of the express powers given Congress is "to lay 
and collect taxes, duties, imports, and excises; to 
pay the debts and provide for the common defense 
and general welfare of the United States." Now, 
Congress is expressly authorized to make all laws 
necessary and proper for carrying this power into 
execution. To carry it into execution it is indis- 
pensably necessary to collect, safely keep, transfer, 
and disburse a revenue. To do this, a bank is 
' ' necessary and proper. " But, say our opponents, to 
authorize the making of a bank, the necessity must 
be so great that the power just recited would be 
nugatory without it; and that that necessity is 
expressly negatived by the fact that they have got 
along ten whole years without such a bank. Im- 
mediately we turn on them, and say that that sort of 
necessity for a sub treasury does not exist, because 
we have got along forty whole years without one. 
And this time it may be observed that we are not 
merely equal with them in the argument, but we 
beat them forty to ten, or, which is the same thing, 
four to one. On examination, it will be found that 
the absurd rule which prescribes that before we can 
constitutionally adopt a national bank as a fiscal 
agent, we must show an indispensable necessity for 



2i6 The Writings of 

it, will exclude every sort of fiscal agent that the 
mind of man can conceive. A bank is not indis- 
pensable, because we can take the subtreasury; the 
sub treasury is not indispensable, because we can take 
the bank. The rule is too absurd to need further 
comment. Upon the phrase ' 'necessary and proper ' ' 
in the Constitution, it seems to me more reasonable 
to say that some fiscal agent is indispensably neces- 
sary; but inasmuch as no particular sort of agent is 
thus indispensable, because some other sort might 
be adopted, we are left to choose that sort of agent 
which may be most "proper" on grounds of expedi- 
ency. But it is said the Constitution gives no power 
to Congress to pass acts of incorporation. Indeed! 
What is the passing an act of incorporation but the 
making of a law? Is any one wise enough to tell? 
The Constitution expressly gives Congress power 
"to pass all laws necessary and proper," etc. If, 
then, the passing of a bank charter be the "making a 
law necessary and proper" is it not clearly within the 
constitutional power of Congress to do so ? 

I now leave the bank and the subtreasury to try 
to answer, in a brief way, some of the arguments 
which on previous evenings here have been urged 
by Messrs. Lamborn and Douglas. Mr. Lambom 
admits that "errors," as he charitably calls them, 
have occurred under the present and late administra- 
tions; but he insists that as great "errors" have 
occurred under all administrations. This we re- 
spectfully den3/. We admit that errors may have 
occurred under all administrations, but we insist 
that there is no parallel between them and those 



Abraham Lincoln 217 

of the two last. If they can show that their 
errors are no greater in number and magnitude than 
those of former times, we call off the dogs. But 
they can do no such thing. To be brief, I will 
now attempt a contrast of the "errors" of the two 
latter with those of former administrations, in rela- 
tion to the public expenditures only. What I am 
now about to say as to the expenditures will be, in 
all cases, exclusive of payments on the national debt. 
By an examination of authentic public documents, 
consisting of the regular series of annual reports 
made by all the secretaries of the treasury from the 
establishment of the government down to the close of 
the y e ar 1 8 3 8 , the following contrasts will be presented : 
(i) The last ten years under General Jackson and 
Mr. Van Buren cost more money than the first 
twenty-seven did (including the heavy expenses of 
the late British war) under Washington, Adams, 
Jefferson, and Madison. 

(2) The last year of J. Q. Adams's administration 
cost, in round numbers, thirteen millions, being about 
one dollar to each soul in the nation; the last (1838) 
of Mr. Van Buren's cost forty millions, being about 
two dollars and fifty cents to each soul, and being 
larger than the expenditure of Mr. Adams in the 
proportion of five to two. 

(3) The highest annual expenditure during the late 
British war — ^being in 18 14, and while we had in 
actual service rising 188,000 militia, together with 
the whole regular army, swelling the number to 
greatly over 200,000, and they to be clad, fed, and 
transported from point to point, with great rapidity 



2i8 The Writings of 

and corresponding expense, and to be furnished with 
arms and ammunition, and they to be transported in 
like manner, and at hke expense — ^was no more in 
round numbers than thirty millions; whereas the 
annual expenditure of 1838, under Mr. Van Buren, 
and while we were at peace with every government 
in the world, was forty millions; being over the 
highest year of the late and very expensive war in 
the proportion of four to three. 

(4) General Washington administered the govern- 
ment eight years for sixteen millions; Mr. Van 
Buren administered it one year (1838) for forty 
millions ; so that Mr. Van Buren expended twice and 
a half as much in one year as General Washington did 
in eight, and being in the proportion of twenty to one ; 
or in other words, had General Washington admin- 
istered the government twenty years at the same 
average expense that he did for eight, he would have 
carried us through the whole twenty for no more 
money than Mr. Van Buren has expended in getting 
us through the single one of 1838. Other facts 
equally astounding might be presented from the 
same authentic documents; but I deem the fore- 
going abundantly sufficient to establish the pro- 
position that there is no parallel between the "errors" 
of the present and late administrations and those of 
former times, and that Mr. Van Buren is wholly out 
of the line of all precedents. 

But Mr. Douglas, seeing that the enormous ex- 
penditure of 1838 has no parallel in the olden times, 
comes in with a long list of excuses for it. This list 
of excuses I will rapidly examine, and show, as I 



Abraham Lincoln 219 

think, that the few of them which are true prove 
nothing, and that the majority of them are wholly 
untrue in fact. He first says that the expenditures 
of that one year were made under the appropriations 
of Congress — one branch of which was a Whig body. 
It is true that those expenditures were made under 
the appropriations of Congress ; but it is tmtrue that 
either branch of Congress was a Whig body. The 
Senate had fallen into the hands of the administra- 
tion more than a year before, as proven by the pas- 
sage of the Expunging Resolution, and at the time 
those appropriations were made there were too few 
Whigs in that body to make a respectable struggle, 
in point of numbers, upon any question. This is 
notorious to all. The House of Representatives that 
voted those appropriations w^as the same that first 
assembled at the called session of September, 1838. 
Although it refused to pass the subtreasury bill, a 
majority of its members were elected as friends of the 
administration, and proved their adherence to it by 
the election of a Van Buren speaker, and two Van 
Buren clerks. It is clear, then, that both branches 
of the Congress that passed those appropriations 
were in the hands of Mr. Van Buren's friends, so that 
the Whigs had no power to arrest them, as Mr. 
Douglas would insist. And is not the charge of 
extravagant expenditures equally well sustained, if 
shown to have been made by a Van Buren Congress, 
as if shown to have been made in any other way? 
A Van Buren Congress passed the bills, and Mr. Van 
Buren himself approved them, and consequently the 
party are wholly responsible for them. 



220 The Writings of 

Mr. Douglas next says that a portion of the ex- 
penditures of that year was made for the purchase of 
pubhc lands from the Indians. Now it happens that 
no such purchase was made during that year. It is 
true that some money was paid that year in pur- 
suance of Indian treaties; but no more, or rather not 
as much as had been paid on the same accoimt in 
each of several preceding years. 

Next he says that the Florida war created many 
millions of this year's expenditure. This is true, 
and it is also true that during that and every other 
year that that war has existed, it has cost three or 
four times as much as it would have done under an 
honest and judicious administration of the govern- 
ment. The large sums foolishly, not to say cor- 
ruptly, thrown away in that war constitute one of the 
just causes of complaint against the administration. 
Take a single instance. The agents of the govern- 
ment in connection with that war needed a certain 
steamboat; the owner proposed to sell it for ten 
thousand dollars; the agents refused to give that 
sum, but hired the boat at one hundred dollars per 
day, and kept it at that hire till it amounted to 
ninety-two thousand dollars. This fact is not found 
in the public reports, but depends, with me, on 
the verbal statement of an officer of the navy, who 
says he knows it to be true. That the adminis- 
tration ought to be credited for the reasonable ex- 
penses of the Florida war, we have never denied. 
Those reasonable charges, we say, could not exceed 
one or two millions a year. Deduct such a sum 
from the forty-million expenditure of 1838, and the 



Abraham Lincoln 221 

remainder will still be without a parallel as an annual 
expenditure. 

Again, Mr. Douglas says that the removal of the 
Indians to the country west of the Mississippi 
created much of the expenditure of 1838. I have 
examined the public documents in relation to this 
matter, and find that less was paid for the removal of 
Indians in that than in some former years. The 
whole sum expended on that account in that year did 
not much exceed one quarter of a million. For this 
small sum, although we do not think the administra- 
tion entitled to credit because large sums have been 
expended in the same way in former years, we con- 
sent it may take one and make the most of it. 

Next, Mr. Douglas says that five millions of the 
expenditures of 1838 consisted of the payment of the 
French indemnity money to its individual claimants. 
I have carefully examined the public documents, and 
thereby find this statement to be wholly untrue. 
Of the forty millions of dollars expended in 1838, I 
am enabled to say positively that not one dollar 
consisted of payments on the French indemnities. 
So much for that excuse. 

Next comes the post-ofiice. He says that five 
millions were expended during that year to sustain 
that department. By a like examination of public 
documents, I find this also wholly untrue. Of the so 
often mentioned forty millions, not one dollar went 
to the post-office. I am glad, however, that the 
post-office has been referred to, because it warrants 
me in digressing a little to inquire how it is that that 
department of the government has become a charge 



222 The Writings of 

upon the treasury, whereas under Mr. Adams and 
the Presidents before him it not only, to use a homely 
phrase, cut its own fodder, but actually threw a 
surplus into the treasury. Although nothing of the 
forty millions was paid on that account in 1838, it is 
true that five millions are appropriated to be so ex- 
pended in 1839; showing clearly that the depart- 
ment has become a charge upon the treasury. How 
has this happened? I account for it in this way: 
The chief expense of the Post-office Department 
consists of the payments of contractors for carrying 
the mail. Contracts for carrying the mails are by law 
let to the lowest bidders, after advertisement. This 
plan introduces competition, and insures the trans- 
portation of the mails at fair prices, so long as it 
is faithfully adhered to. It has ever been adhered 
to until Mr. Barry was made Postmaster-General. 
When he came into office, he formed the purpose of 
throwing the mail contracts into the hands of his 
friends, to the exclusion of his opponents. To effect 
this, the plan of letting to the lowest bidder must be 
evaded, and it must be done in this way : the favor- 
ite bid less by perhaps three or four hundred per 
cent, than the contract could be performed for, and 
consequently, shutting out all honest competition, 
became the contractor. The Postmaster-General 
would immediately add some slight additional duty 
to the contract, and under the pretense of extra 
allowance for extra services run the contract to 
double, triple, and often quadruple what honest and 
fair bidders had proposed to take it at. In 1834 the 
finances of the department had become so deranged 



Abraham Lincoln 223 

that total concealment was not longer possible, and 
consequently a committee of the Senate were directed 
to make a thorough investigation of its affairs. 
Their report is found in the Senate Documents of 
1833-4, Vol. v., Doc. 422; which documents may be 
seen at the secretary's office, and I presume elsewhere 
in the State. The report shows numerous cases of 
similar import, of one of which I give the substance. 
The contract for carrying the mail upon a certain 
route had expired, and of course was to be let again. 
The old contractor offered to take it for $300 a year, 
the mail to be transported thereon three times a week, 
or for $600 transported daily. One James Reeside 
bid $40 for three times a week, or $99 daily, and of 
course received the contract. On the examination 
of the committee, it was discovered that Reeside had 
received for the service on this route, which he had 
contracted to render for less than $100, the enormous 
sum of $1999! This is but a single case. Many 
similar ones, covering some ten or twenty pages of a 
large volume, are given in that report. The depart- 
ment was found to be insolvent to the amount of half 
a million, and to have been so grossly mismanaged, 
or rather so corruptly managed, in almost every 
particular, that the best friends of the Postmaster- 
General made no defence of his administration of it. 
They admitted that he was wholly unqualified for 
that office ; but still he was retained in it by the Presi- 
dent until he resigned it voluntarily about a year 
afterward. And when he resigned it, what do you 
think became of him ? Why, he sunk into obscurity 
and disgrace, to be sure, you will say. No such thing. 



224 The Writings of 

Well, then, what did become of him? Why, the 
President immediately expressed his high disappro- 
bation of his almost unequalled incapacity and cor- 
ruption by appointing him to a foreign mission, with 
a salary and outfit of $18,000 a year! The party 
now attempt to throw Barry off, and to avoid the 
responsibility of his sins. Did not the President 
indorse those sins when, on the very heel of their 
commission, he appointed their author to the very 
highest and most honorable office in his gift, and 
which is but a single step behind the very goal of 
American political ambition? 

I return to another of Mr. Douglas's excuses for the 
expenditures of 1838, at the same time announcing 
the pleasing intelligence that this is the last one. 
He says that ten millions of that year's expenditure 
was a contingent appropriation, to prosecute an 
anticipated war with Great Britain on the Maine 
botmdary question. Few words will settle this. 
First, that the ten millions appropriated was not 
made till 1839, and consequently could not have 
been expended in 1838; second, although it was 
appropriated, it has never been expended at all. 
Those who heard Mr. Douglas recollect that he in- 
dulged himself in a contemptuous expression of pity 
for me. "Now he's got me," thought I. But 
when he went on to say that five millions of the 
expenditure of 1838 were payments of the French 
indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five 
millions had been for the post-office, which I knew 
to be untrue; that ten millions had been for the 
Maine boundary war, which I not only knew to be 



d 



Abraham Lincoln 225 

untrue, but supremely ridiculous also; and when I 
saw that he was stupid enough to hope that I would 
permit such groundless and audacious assertions 
to go unexposed, — I readily consented that, on the 
score both of veracity and sagacity, the audience 
should judge whether he or I were the more deserving 
of the world's contempt. 

Mr. Lamborn insists that the difference between 
the Van Buren party and the Whigs is that, although 
the former sometimes err in practice, they are always 
correct in principle, whereas the latter are wrong in 
principle; and, better to impress this proposition, 
he uses a figurative expression in these words : ' ' The 
Democrats are vulnerable in the heel, but they are 
sound in the head and the heart." The first branch 
of the figure — that is, that the Democrats are vul- 
nerable in the heel — I admit is not merely fig- 
uratively, but literally true. Who that looks but for 
a moment at their Swartwouts, their Prices, their 
Harringtons, and their hundreds of others, scamper- 
ing away with the public money to Texas, to Europe, 
and to every spot of the earth where a villain may 
hope to find refuge from justice, can at all doubt that 
they are most distressingly affected in their heels 
with a species of "running itch" ? It seems that this 
malady of their heels operates on these sound-headed 
and honest-hearted creatures very much like the 
cork leg in the comic song did on its owner: which, 
when he had once got started on it, the more he 
tried to stop it, the more it would run away. At the 
hazard of wearing this point threadbare, I will relate 
an anecdote which seems too strikingly in point to 

VOL. I.— 15, 



226 The Writings of 

be omitted. A witty Irish soldier, who was always 
boasting of his bravery when no danger was near, but 
who invariably retreated without orders at the first 
charge of an engagement, being asked by his captain 
why he did so, replied: "Captain, I have as brave a 
heart as Julius Caesar ever had; but, somehow or 
other, whenever danger approaches, my cowardly 
legs will run away with it." So with Mr. Lambom's 
party. They take the public money into their hand 
for the most laudable purpose that wise heads and 
honest hearts can dictate; but before they can 
possibly get it out again, their rascally "vulnerable 
heels" will run away with them. 

Seriously this proposition of Mr. Lambom is 
nothing more or less than a request that his party 
may be tried by their professions instead of their 
practices. Perhaps no position that the party as- 
sumes is more liable to or more deserving of ex- 
posure than this very modest request; and nothing 
but the unwarrantable length to which I have already 
extended these remarks forbids me now attempting 
to expose it. For the reason given, I pass it by. 

I shall advert to but one more point. Mr, Lam- 
bom refers to the late elections in the States, and 
from their results confidently predicts that every 
State in the Union will vote for Mr. Van Buren at 
the next Presidential election. Address that argu- 
ment to cowards and to knaves; with the free and 
the brave it will effect nothing. It may be true ; if 
it must, let it. Many free countries have lost their 
liberty, and ours may lose hers; but if she shall, be 
it my proudest plume, not that I was the last to 



Abraham Lincoln 227 

desert, but that I never deserted her, I know that 
the great volcano at Washington, aroused and di- 
rected by the evil spirit that reigns there, is belch- 
ing forth the lava of political corruption in a current 
broad and deep, which is sweeping with frightful 
velocity over the whole length and breadth of the 
land, bidding fair to leave unscathed no green spot 
or living thing; while on its bosom are riding, like 
demons on the waves of hell, the imps of that evil 
spirit, and fiendishly taunting all those who dare resist 
its destroying course with the hopelessness of their 
effort; and, knowing this, I cannot deny that all 
may be swept away. Broken by it I, too, may be; 
bow to it I never will. The probability that we may 
fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the sup- 
port of a cause we believe to be just ; it shall not deter 
me. If ever I feel the soul within me elevate and 
expand to those dimensions not wholly unworthy 
of its almighty Architect, it is when I contemplate 
the cause of my country deserted by all the world 
beside, and I standing up boldly and alone, and 
hurling defiance at her victorious oppressors. Here, 
without contemplating consequences, before high 
heaven and in the face of the world, I swear eternal 
fidelity to the just cause, as I deem it, of the land 
of my life, my liberty, and my love. And who that 
thinks with me vrill not fearlessly adopt the oath 
that I take ? Let none falter who thinks he is right, 
and we may succeed. But if, after all, we shall fail, 
P be it so. We still shall have the proud consolation 
of saying to our consciences, and to the departed 
shade of our country's freedom, that the cause 



228 The Writings of 

approved of our judgment, and adored of our hearts, 
in disaster, in chains, in torture, in death, we never 
faltered in defending. 



TO JOHN T. STUART. 

Springfield, December 23, 1839. 

Dear Stuart : 

Dr. Henry will write you all the political news. I 
write this about some little matters of business. 
You recollect you told me you had drawn the 
Chicago Masark money, and sent it to the claimants. 
A hawk-billed Yankee is here be'setting me at every 
turn I take, saying that Robert Kinzie never re- 
ceived the eighty dollars to which he was entitled. 
Can you tell me anything about the matter? Again, 
old Mr. Wright, who lives up South Fork somewhere, 
is teasing me continually about some deeds which he 
says he left with you, but which I can find nothing of. . 
Can you tell me where they are ? The Legislature is 
in session and has suffered the bank to forfeit its 
charter without benefit of clergy. There seems to 
be little disposition to resuscitate it. 

Whenever a letter comes from you to Mrs. , 

I carry it to her, and then I see Betty ; she is a toler- 
able nice "fellow" now. Maybe I will write again 

when I get more time. 

Your friend as ever, 

A. Lincoln. 
P. S. — ^The Democratic giant is here, but he is 

not much worth talking about. 

A. L. 



Abraham Lincoln 229 

CIRCULAR FROM WHIG COMMITTEE. 

January [i?], 1840. 

Confidential. 



To Messrs. . 

Gentlemen : — In obedience to a resolution of the 
Whig State convention, we have appointed you the 
Central Whig Committee of your county. The trust 
confided to you will be one of watchfulness and labor ; 
but we hope the glory of having contributed to the 
overthrow of the corrupt powers that now control 
our beloved country will be a sufficient reward for 
the time and labor you will devote to it. Our Whig 
brethren throughout the Union have met in conven- 
tion, and after due deliberation and mutual conces- 
sions have elected candidates for the Presidency and 
Vice-Presidency not only worthy of our cause, but 
worthy of the support of every true patriot who 
would have our country redeemed, and her institu- 
tions honestly and faithfully administered. To 
overthrow the trained bands that are opposed to us 
whose salaried officers are ever on the watch, and 
whose misguided followers are ever ready to obey 
their smallest commands, every Whig must not only 
know his duty, but must firmly resolve, whatever 
of time and labor it may cost, boldly and faithfully 
to do it. Our intention is to organize the whole 
State, so that every Whig can be brought to the 
polls in the coming Presidential contest. We cannot 
do this, however, without your co-operation; and as 
we do our duty, so we shall expect you to do yours. 
After due deliberation, the following is the plan of 



230 The Writings of 

organization, and the duties required of each county 
committee : 

(i) To divide their county into small districts, 
and to appoint in each a subcommittee, whose duty 
it shall be to make a perfect list of all the voters in 
their respective districts, and to ascertain with cer- 
tainty for whom they will vote. If they meet with 
men who are doubtful as to the man they will sup- 
port, such voters should be designated in separate 
lines, with the name of the man they will probably 
support. 

(2) It will be the duty of said subcommittee to 
keep a constant watch on the doubtful voters, and 
from time to time have them talked to by those in 
whom they have the most confidence, and also to 
place in their hands such documents as will enlighten 
and influence them. 

(3) It will also be their duty to report to you, at 
least once a month, the progress they are making, 
and on election days see that every Whig is brought 
to the polls. 

(4) The subcommittees should be appointed im- 
mediately; and by the last of April, at least, they 
should make their first report. 

(5) On the first of each month hereafter we shall 
expect to hear from you. After the first report of 
your subcommittees, unless there should be found a 
great many doubtful voters, you can tell pretty 
accurately the manner in which your county will 
vote. In each of your letters to us, you will state 
the number of certain votes both for and against 
us, as well as the number of doubtful votes, with 



Abraham Lincoln 231 

your opinion of the manner in which they will be 

cast. 

(6) When we have heard from all the counties, we 
shall be able to tell with similar accuracy the political 
complexion of the State. This information will be 
forwarded to you as soon as received. 

(7) Inclosed is a prospectus for a newspaper to be 
continued until after the Presidential election. It 
will be superintended by ourselves, and every Whig 
in the State must take it. It will be published so 
low that every one can afford it. You must raise a 
fund and forward us for extra copies, — every county 
ought to send fifty or one hundred dollars, — and 
the copies will be forwarded to you for distribution 
among our political opponents. The paper will be 
devoted exclusively to the great cause in which we 
are engaged. Procure subscriptions, and forward 
them to us immediately. 

(8) Immediately after any election in your county, 
you must inform us of its results; and as early as 
possible after any general election we will give you 
the like information. 

(9) A senator in Congress is to be elected by our 
next Legislature. Let no local interests divide you, 
but select candidates that can succeed. 

(10) Our plan of operations will of course be con- 
cealed from every one except our good friends who 
of right ought to know them. 

Trusting much in our good cause, the strength of 
our candidates, and the determination of the Whigs 
everywhere to do their duty, we go to the work of 
organization in this State confident of success. We 



232 The Writings of 



have the numbers, and if properly organized and 
exerted, with the gallant Harrison at our head, we 
shall meet our foes and conquer them in all parts of 
the Union. 

Address your letters to Dr. A. G. Henr}-, R. F. 
Barrett, A. Lincoln, E. D. Baker, J. F. Speed. 



RESOLUTIOX IX THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 

November 28, 1840. 

In the Illinois House of Representatives, Novem- 
ber 28, 1S40, Mr. Lincoln offered the following: 

Resolved, That so much of the governor's message 
as relates to fraudulent voting, and other fraudulent 
practices at elections, be referred to the Committee 
on Elections, with instructions to said committee to 
prepare and report to the House a bill for such an act 
as may in their judgment afford the greatest possible 
protection of the elective franchise against all frauds 
of aU sorts whatever. 



RESOLUTION IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE, 

December 2, 1840. 

Resolved, That the Committee on Education be 
instructed to inquire into the expediency of pro- 
viding by law for the examination as to the qualifica- 
tion of persons offering themselves as school teachers, 
that no teacher shall receive any part of the public 
school fund who shall not have successfull}* passed 
such examination, and that they report by bill or 
otherwise. 



Abraham Lincoln 233 

REMARKS IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 

December 4, 1840. 

In the House of Representatives, Illinois, Decem- 
ber 4, 1840, on presentation of a report respecting 
petition of H. N. Purple, claiming the seat of Mr. 
Phelps from Peoria, Mr. Lincoln moved that the 
House resolve itself into Committee of the Whole on 
the question, and take it up immediately. Mr. 
Lincoln considered the question of the highest 
importance whether an individual had a right to sit 
in this House or not. The coiu^se he should propose 
would be to take up the evidence and decide upon 
the facts seriatim. 

Mr. Drummond wanted time; they could not 
decide in the heat of debate, etc. 

Mr. Lincoln thought that the question had better 
be gone into now. In courts of law jurors were re- 
quired to decide on evidence, without previous study 
or examination. They were required to know 
nothing of the subject until the evidence was laid 
before them for their immediate decision. He 
thought that the heat of party would be augmented 
by delay. 

The Speaker called Mr. Lincoln to order as being 
irrelevant ; no mention had been made of party heat. 

Mr. Drummond said he had only spoken of debate. 

Mr. Lincoln asked what caused the heat, if it was 
not party? Mr. Lincoln concluded by urging that 
the question would be decided now better than here- 
after, and he thought with less heat and excitement. 

(Further debate, in which Lincoln participated.) 



234 The Writings of 

REMARKS IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 

December 4, 1840. 

In the Illinois House of Representatives, Decem- 
ber 4, 1840, — House in Committee of the Whole on 
the bill providing for payment of interest on the 
State debt, — Mr. Lincoln moved to strike out the 
body and amendments of the bill, and insert in lieu 
thereof an amendment which in substance was that 
the governor be authorized to issue bonds for the 
payment of the interest; that these be called 
"interest bonds"; that the taxes accruing on Con- 
gress lands as they become taxable be irrevocably 
set aside and devoted as a fund to the payment of 
the interest bonds. Mr. Lincoln went into the 
reasons which appeared to him to render this plan 
preferable to that of hypothecating the State bonds. 
By this course we could get along till the next meet- 
ing of the Legislature, which was of great importance. 
To the objection which might be urged that these 
interest bonds could not be cashed, he replied that 
if our other bonds could, much more could these, 
which offered a perfect security, a fund being irre- 
vocably set aside to provide for their redemption. 
To another objection, that we should be paying com.- 
pound interest, he would reply that the rapid growth 
and increase of our resources was in so great a ratio 
as to outstrip the difficulty; that his object was to 
do the best that could be done in the present emer- 
gency. All agreed that the faith of the State must 
be preserved; this plan appeared to him preferable 
to a hypothecation of bonds, which would have to be 



Abraham Lincoln 235 

redeemed and the interest paid. How this was to be 
done, he could not see ; therefore he had, after turn- 
ing the matter over in every way, devised this meas- 
ure, which would carry us on till the next Legislature. 

(Mr. Lincoln spoke at some length, advocating his 
measure.) 

Lincoln advocated his measure, December 1 1 , 1 840. 

December 12, 1840, he had thought some per- 
manent provision ought to be made for the bonds 
to be hypothecated, but was satisfied taxation and 
revenue could not be connected with it now. 



Dear Stuart : 



TO JOHN T. STUART. 

Springfield, Jan. 23, 1841. 



I am now the most miserable man living. If what 
I feel were equally distributed to the whole human 
family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. 
Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I 
awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am is 
impossible. I must die or be better, as it appears to 
me. ... I fear I shall be unable to attend any 
business here, and a change of scene might help me. 
If I could be myself, I would rather remain at home 
with Judge Logan. I can write no more. 



REMARKS IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLATURE. 

January 23, 1841. 

In the House of Representatives January 23, 1841, 
while discussing the continuation of the Illinois and 



236 The Writings of 

Michigan Canal, Mr. Moore was afraid the holders 
of the "scrip" would lose. 

Mr. Napier thought there was no danger of that; 
and Mr. Lincoln said he had not examined to see 
what amount of scrip would probably be needed. 
The principal point in his mind was this, that nobody- 
was obliged to take these certificates. It is alto- 
gether voluntary on their part, and if the}^ appre- 
hend it will fall in their hands they will not take it. 
Further the loss, if any there be, will fall on the 
citizens of that section of the country. 

This scrip is not going to circulate over an exten- 
sive range of country, but will be confined chiefly to 
the vicinity of the canal. Now, we find the repre- 
sentatives of that section of the country are all in 
favor of the bill. 

When we propose to protect their interests, they 
say to us : Leave us to take care of ourselves ; we are 
willing to run the risk. And this is reasonable ; we 
must suppose they are competent to protect their 
own interests, and it is only fair to let them do it. 



CIRCULAR FROM WHIG COMMITTEE. 

February 9, 1841. 

Appeal to the People of the State of Illinois. 

Fellow-Citizens : — When the General Assembly, 
now about adjourning, assembled in November last, 
from the bankrupt state of the public treasury, the 
pecuniary embarrassments prevailing in every de- 
partment of society, the dilapidated state of the 
public works, and the impending danger of the 



i 



Abraham Lincoln 237 

degradation of the State, you had a right to expect 
that your representatives would lose no time in 
devising and adopting measures to avert threatened 
calamities, alleviate the distresses of the people, and 
allay the fearful apprehensions in regard to the 
future prosperity of the State. It was not expected 
by you that the spirit of party would take the lead in 
the councils of the State, and make every interest 
bend to its demands. Nor was it expected that any 
party would assume to itself the entire control of 
legislation, and convert the means and offices of the 
State, and the substance of the people, into aliment 
for party subsistence. Neither could it have been 
expected by you that party spirit, however strong its 
desires and unreasonable its demands, would have 
passed the sanctuary of the Constitution, and entered 
with its unhallowed and hideous form into the forma- 
tion of the judiciary system. 

At the early period of the session, measures were 
adopted by the dominant party to take possession of 
the State, to fill all public offices with party men, 
and make every measure affecting the interests of the 
people and the credit of the State operate in further- 
ance of their party views. The merits of men and 
measures therefore became the subject of discussion 
in caucus, instead of the halls of legislation, and 
decisions there made by a minority of the Legislature 
have been executed and carried into effect by the 
force of party discipline, without any regard what- 
ever to the rights of the people or the interests of 
the State. The Supreme Court of the State was 
organized, and judges appointed, according to the 



238 The Writings 01 

provisions of the Constitution, in 1824. The people 
have never complained of the organization of that 
court; no attempt has ever before been made to 
change that department. Respect for public opin- 
ion, and regard for the rights and liberties of the 
people, have hitherto restrained the spirit of party 
from attacks upon the independence and integrity of 
the judiciary. The same judges have continued in 
office since 1824; their decisions have not been the 
subject of complaifit among the people ; the integrity 
and honesty of the court have not been questioned, 
and it has never been supposed that the court has 
ever permitted party prejudice or party considera- 
tions to operate upon their decisions. The court 
was made to consist of four judges, and by the Con- 
stitution two form a quorum for the transaction of 
business. With this tribunal, thus constituted, the 
people have been satisfied for near sixteen years. 
The same law which organized the Supreme Court in 
1824 also established and organized circuit courts to 
be held in each county in the State, and five circuit 
judges were appointed to hold those courts. In 
1826 the Legislature abolished these circuit courts, 
repealed the judges out of office, and required the 
judges of the Supreme Court to hold the circuit courts. 
The reasons assigned for this change were, first, that 
the business of the country could be better attended 
to by the four judges of the Supreme Court than by 
the two sets of judges; and, second, the state of the 
public treasury forbade the employment of unneces- 
sary officers. In 1828 a circuit was established 
north of the Illinois River, in order to meet the 



Abraham Lincoln 239 

wants of the people, and a circuit judge was ap- 
pointed to hold the courts in that circuit. 

In 1834 the circuit-court system was again estab- 
lished throughout the State, circuit judges appointed 
to hold the courts, and the judges of the Supreme 
Court were relieved from the performance of circuit- 
court duties. The change was recommended by the 
then acting governor of the State, General W. L. D. 
Ewing, in the following terms : 

"The augmented population of the State, the 
multiplied number of organized counties, as well as 
the increase of business in all, has long since con- 
vinced every one conversant with this department of 
our government of the indispensable necessity of an 
alteration in our judiciary system, and the subject is 
therefore recommended to the earnest patriotic con- 
sideration of the Legislature. The present system 
has never been exempt from serious and weighty 
objections. The idea of appealing from the circuit 
court to the same judges in the Supreme Court is 
recommended by little hopes of redress to the injured 
party below. The duties of the circuit, too, it may 
be added, consume one half of the year, leaving a 
small and inadequate portion of time (when that 
required for domestic purposes is deducted) to erect, 
in the decisions of the Supreme Court, a judicial 
monument of legal learning and research, which the 
talent and ability of the court might otherwise be 
entirely competent to." 

With this organization of circuit courts the people 
have never complained. The only complaints which 
we have heard have come from circuits which were 



240 The Writings of 

so large that the judges could not dispose of the 
business, and the circuits in which Judges Pearson 
and Ralston lately presided. 

Whilst the honor and credit of the State demanded 
legislation upon the subject of the public debt, the 
canal, the unfinished public works, and the embar- 
rassments of the people, the judiciary stood upon a 
basis which required no change — no legislative action. 
Yet the party in power, neglecting every interest 
requiring legislative action, and wholly disregarding 
the rights, wishes, and interests of the people, has, 
for the unholy purpose of providing places for its 
partisans and supplying them with large salaries, 
disorganized that department of the government. 
Provision is made for the election of five party judges 
of the Supreme Court, the proscription of four circuit 
judges, and the appointment of party clerks in more 
than half the counties of the State. Men professing 
respect for public opinion, and acknowledged to be 
leaders of the party, have avowed in the halls of 
legislation that the change in the judiciary was in- 
tended to produce political results favorable to their 
party and party friends. The immutable principles 
of justice are to make way for party interests, and 
the bonds of social order are to be rent in twain, in 
order that a desperate faction may be sustained at 
the expense of the people. The change proposed in 
the judiciary was supported upon grounds so de- 
structive to the institutions of the country, and so 
entirely at war with the rights and liberties of the 
people, that the party could not secure entire 
imanimity in its support, — three Democrats of the 



Abraham Lincoln 241 

Senate and five of the House voting against the 
measure. They were unwilhng to see the temples of 
justice and the seats of independent judges occupied 
by the tools of faction. The declarations of the 
party leaders, the selection of party men for judges, 
and the total disregard for the public will in the 
adoption of the measure, prove conclusively that 
the object has been not reform, but destruction ; not 
the advancement of the highest interests of the 
State, but the predominance of party. 

We cannot in this manner undertake to point out 
all the objections to this party measure ; we present 
you with those stated by the Council of Revision 
upon returning the bill, and we ask for them a candid 
consideration. 

Believing that the independence of the judiciary 
has been destroyed, that hereafter our courts will be 
independent of the people, and entirely dependent 
upon the Legislature; that our rights of property 
and liberty of conscience can no longer be regarded as 
safe from the encroachments of unconstitutional 
legislation; and knowing of no other remedy which 
can be adopted consistently with the peace and good 
order of society, we call upon you to avail yourselves 
of the opportunity afforded, and, at the next general 
election, vote for a convention of the people. 

S. H. Little, 



E. D. Baker, 
J. J. Hardin, 
E. B. Webb, 
A. Lincoln, 
J. Gillespie, 

VOL. I. — 16. 



Committee on behalf of the 
Whig members of the Legislature. 



242 The Writings of 

EXTRACT FROM A PROTEST IN THE ILLINOIS LEGISLA- 
TURE AGAINST THE REORGANIZATION OF THE 
JUDICIARY. 

February 26, 1841. 

For the reasons thus presented, and for others no 
less apparent, the undersigned cannot assent to the 
passage of the bill, or permit it to become a law, 
without this evidence of their disapprobation; and 
they now protest against the reorganization of the 
judiciary, because — (i) It violates the great princi- 
ples of free government by subjecting the judiciary 
to the Legislature. (2) It is a fatal blow at the 
independence of the judges and the constitutional 
term of their office. (3) It is a measure not asked 
for, or wished for, by the people. (4) It will greatly 
increase the expense of our courts, or else greatly 
diminish their utility. (5) It will give our courts a 
political and partisan character, thereby impairing 
public confidence in their decisions. (6) It will 
impair our standing with other States and the world. 
(7) It is a party measure for party purposes, from 
which no practical good to the people can possibly 
arise, but which may be the source of immeasurable 
evils. 

The undersigned are well aware that this protest 
will be altogether unavailing with the majority of 
this body. The blow has already fallen, and we are 
compelled to stand by, the mournful spectators of 
the ruin it will cause. 

[Signed by 3 5 members, among whom was Abraham 
Lincoln.] 



Abraham Lincoln 243 

TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, June 19, 1841. 

Dear Speed : — We have had the highest state of 
excitement here for a week past that our community 
has ever witnessed; and, although the pubhc feeHng 
is somewhat allayed, the curious affair which aroused 
it is very far from being even yet cleared of mystery. 
It would take a quire of paper to give you an3rthing 
like a full account of it, and I therefore only propose 
a brief outline. The chief personages in the drama 
are Archibald Fisher, supposed to be murdered, 
and Archibald Trailor, Henry Trailor, and William 
Trailor, supposed to have murdered him. The three 
Trailors are brothers: the first, Arch., as you know, 
lives in town; the second, Henry, in Clary's Grove; 
and the third, William, in Warren County; and 
Fisher, the supposed murdered, being without a 
family, had made his home with William. On 
Saturday evening, being the 29th of May, Fisher and 
William came to Henry's in a one-horse dearborn, 
and there stayed over Sunday; and on Monday all 
three came to Springfield (Henry on horseback) 
and joined Archibald at Myers's, the Dutch carpenter. 
That evening at supper Fisher was missing, and so 
next morning some ineffectual search was made for 
him; and on Tuesday, at one o'clock p.m., William 
and Henry started home without him. In a day or 
two Henry and one or two of his Clary-Grove 
neighbors came back for him again, and advertised 
his disappearance in the papers. The knowledge of 
the matter thus far had not been general, and here it 



244 The Writings of 

dropped entirely, till about the loth instant, when 
Keys received a letter from the postmaster in Warren 
County, that William had arrived at home, and was 
telling a very mysterious and improbable story about 
the disappearance of Fisher, which induced the com- 
munity there to suppose he had been disposed of 
unfairly. Keys made this letter public, which im- 
mediately set the whole town and adjoining county 
agog. And so it has continued until yesterday. 
The mass of the people commenced a systematic 
search for the dead body, while Wickersham was 
despatched to arrest Henry Trailor at the Grove, 
and Jim Maxcy to Warren to arrest William. On 
Monday last, Henry was brought in, and showed an 
evident inclination to insinuate that he knew Fisher 
to be dead, and that Arch, and William had killed 
him. He said he guessed the body could be found 
in Spring Creek, between the Beardstown road and 
Hickox's mill. Away the people swept like a herd 
of buffalo, and cut down Hickox's mill-dam nolens 
volens, to draw the water out of the pond, and then 
went up and down and down and up the creek, 
fishing and raking, and raking and ducking and 
diving for two days, and, after all, no dead body 
found. 

In the meantime a sort of scuffling-ground had 
been found in the brush in the angle, or point, where 
the road leading into the woods past the brewery 
and the one leading in past the brick-yard meet. 
From the scuffle-ground was the sign of something 
about the size of a man having been dragged to the 
edge of the thicket, where it joined the track of some 



Abraham Lincoln 245 

small-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse, as shown 
by the road-tracks. The carriage-track led off 
toward Spring Creek. Near this drag-trail Dr. 
Merry man found two hairs, which, after a long 
scientific examination, he pronounced to be triangu- 
lar human hairs, which term, he says, includes within 
it the whiskers, the hair growing under the arms and 
on other parts of the body ; and he judged that these 
two were of the whiskers, because the ends were cut, 
showing that they had flourished in the neighborhood 
of the razor's operations. On Thursday last Jim 
Maxcy brought in William Trailer from Warren. On 
the same day Arch, was arrested and put in jail. 
Yesterday (Friday) William was put upon his exam- 
ining trial before May and Lovely. Archibald and 
Henry were both present. Lambom prosecuted, 
and Logan, Baker, and your humble servant de- 
fended. A great many witnesses were introduced 
and examined, but I shall only mention those whose 
testimony seemed most important. The first of 
these was Captain Ransdell. He swore that when 
William and Henry left Springfield for home on 
Tuesday before mentioned they did not take the 
direct route, — ^which, you know, leads by the butcher 
shop, — ^but that they followed the street north until 
they got opposite, or nearly opposite. May's new 
house, after which he could not see them from where 
he stood ; and it was afterwards proved that in about 
an hour after they started, they came into the street 
by the butcher shop from toward the brick-yard. 
Dr. Merryman and others swore to what is stated 
about the scuffle-ground, drag-trail, whiskers, and 



246 The Writings of 

carriage-tracks. Henry was then introduced by the 
prosecution. He swore that when they started for 
home they went out north, as Ransdell stated, and 
turned down west by the brick-yard into the woods, 
and there met Archibald; that they proceeded a 
small distance farther, when he was placed as a 
sentinel to watch for and announce the approach of 
any one that might happen that way; that William 
and Arch, took the dearborn out of the road a small 
distance to the edge of the thicket, where they 
stopped, and he saw them lift the body of a man into 
it ; that they then moved off with the carriage in the 
direction of Hickox's mill, and he loitered about for 
something like an hour, when William returned with 
the carriage, but without Arch., and said they had 
put him in a safe place ; that they went somehow — 
he did not know exactly how — into the road close to 
the brewery, and proceeded on to Clary's Grove. 
He also stated that some time during the day William 
told him that he and Arch, had killed Fisher the 
evening before; that the way they did it was by 
him (William) knocking him down with a club, and 
Arch, then choking him to death. 

An old man from Warren, called Dr. Gilmore, was 
then introduced on the part of the defence. He 
swore that he had known Fisher for several years; 
that Fisher had resided at his house a long time at 
each of two different spells — once while he built a 
bam for him, and once while he was doctored for 
some chronic disease; that two or three years ago 
Fisher had a serious hurt in his head by the bursting 
of a gun, since which he had been subject to continued 



Abraham Lincoln 247 

bad health and occasional aberration of mind. He 
also stated that on last Tuesday, being the same day 
that Maxcy arrested William Trailor, he (the doctor) 
was from home in the early part of the day, and on 
his return, about eleven o'clock, found Fisher at his 
house in bed, and apparently very unwell; that he 
asked him how he came from Springfield; that 
Fisher said he had come by Peoria, and also told of 
several other places he had been at more in the direc- 
tion of Peoria, which showed that he at the time of 
speaking did not know where he had been wandering 
about in a state of derangement. He further stated 
that in about two hours he received a note from one 
of Trailor's friends, advising him of his arrest, and 
requesting him to go on to Springfield as a witness, 
to testify as to the state of Fisher's health in former 
times; that he immediately set off, calling up two 
of his neighbors as company, and, riding all even- 
ing and all night, overtook Maxcy and William at 
Lewiston in Fulton County ; that Maxcy refusing to 
discharge Trailor upon his statement, his two neigh- 
bors returned and he came on to Springfield. Some 
question being made as to whether the doctor's 
story was not a fabrication, several acquaintances of 
his (among whom was the same postmaster who 
wrote Keys, as before mentioned) were introduced as 
sort of compurgators, who swore that they knew the 
doctor to be of good character for truth and veracity, 
and generally of good character in every way. 
Here the testimony ended, and the Trailors were dis- 
charged, Arch, and William expressing both in word 
and manner their entire confidence that Fisher would 



248 The Writings of 

be found alive at the doctor's by Galloway, Mallory, 
and Myers, who a day before had been despatched 
for that purpose; while Henry still protested that 
no power on earth could ever show Fisher alive. 
Thus stands this curious affair. When the doctor's 
story was first made public, it was amusing to scan 
and contemplate the countenances and hear the 
remarks of those who had been actively in search for 
the dead body: some looked quizzical, some melan- 
choly, and some furiously angry. Porter, who had 
been very active, swore he always knew the man was 
not dead, and that he had not stirred an inch to 
hunt for him; Langford, who had taken the lead in 
cutting down Hickox's mill-dam, and wanted to hang 
Hickox for objecting, looked most awfully woe- 
begone : he seemed the ' ' victim of unrequited affec- 
tion," as represented in the comic almanacs we used 
to laugh over; and Hart, the little drayman that 
hauled Molly home once, said it was too damned bad 
to have so much trouble, and no hanging after all. 

I commenced this letter on yesterday, since which 
I received yours of the 13th. I stick to my promise 
to come to Louisville. Nothing new here except 

what I have written. I have not seen since my 

last trip, and I am going out there as soon as I mail 
this letter. Yours forever, 

Lincoln. 



STATEMENT ABOUT HARRY WILTON. 

June 25, 1841. 

It having been charged in some of the public prints 
that Harry Wilton, late United States marshal for 



Abraham Lincoln 249 

the district of IlHnois, had used his office for political 
effect, in the appointment of deputies for the taking 
of the census for the year 1840, we, the undersigned, 
were called upon by Mr. Wilton to examine the 
papers in his possession relative to these appoint- 
ments, and to ascertain therefrom the correctness 
or incorrectness of such charge. We accompanied 
Mr. Wilton to a room, and examined the matter as 
fully as we could with the means afforded us. The 
only sources of information bearing on the subject 
which were submitted to us were the letters, etc., 
recommending and opposing the various appoint- 
ments made, and Mr. Wilton's verbal statements 
concerning the same. From these letters, etc., it 
appears that in some instances appointments were 
made in accordance with the recommendations of 
leading Whigs, and in opposition to those of leading 
Democrats; among which instances the appoint- 
ments at Scott, Wayne, Madison, and Lawrence are 
the strongest. According to Mr. Wilton's statement 
of the seventy-six appointments we examined, fifty- 
four were of Democrats, eleven of Whigs, and eleven 
of unknown politics. 

The chief ground of complaint against Mr. Wilton, 
as we had understood it, was because of his appoint- 
ment of so many Democratic candidates for the 
Legislature, thus giving them a decided advantage 
over their Whig opponents; and consequently our 
attention was directed rather particularly to that 
point. We found that there were many such ap- 
pointments, among which were those in Tazewell, 
McLean, Iroquois, Coles, Menard, Wayne, Washington, 



250 The Writings of 

ton, Fayette, etc. ; and we did not learn that there 
was one instance in which a Whig candidate for the 
Legislature had been appointed. There was no 
written evidence before us showing us at what time 
those appointments were made; but Mr. Wilton 
stated that they all with one exception were made 
before those appointed became candidates for the 
Legislature, and the letters, etc., recommending them 
all bear date before, and most of them long before, 
those appointed were publicly announced candidates. 
We give the foregoing naked facts and draw no 
conclusions from them. 

Benj. S. Edwards, 
A. Lincoln. 



TO MISS MARY SPEED. 

Bloomington, III., September 27, 1841. 

Miss Mary Speed, Louisville, Ky. 
My Friend: 

By the way, a fine example was presented on board 
the boat for contemplating the effect of condition 
upon human happiness. A gentleman had pur- 
chased twelve negroes in different parts of Kentucky, 
and was taking them to a farm in the South. They 
were chained six and six together. A small iron 
clevis was around the left wrist of each, and this 
fastened to the main chain by a shorter one, at a 
convenient distance from the others, so that the 
negroes were strung together precisely like so many 
fish upon a trot -line. In this condition they were 



Abraham Lincoln 251 

being separated forever from the scenes of their 
childhood, their friends, their fathers and mothers, 
and brothers and sisters, and many of them from 
their wives and children, and going into perpetual 
slavery where the lash of the master is proverbially 
more ruthless and unrelenting than any other where ; 
and yet amid all these distressing circumstances, as 
we would think them, they were the most cheerful 
and apparently happy creatures on board. One, 
whose offence for which he had been sold was an over- 
fondness for his wife, played the fiddle almost con- 
tinually, and the others danced, sang, cracked jokes, 
and played various games with cards from day to 
day. How true it is that ' God tempers the wind to 
the shorn lamb,' or in other words, that he renders 
the worst of human conditions tolerable, while he 
permits the best to be nothing better than tolerable. 
To return to the narrative: When we reached 
Springfield I stayed but one day, when I started on 
this tedious circuit where I now am. Do you re- 
member my going to the city, while I was in Ken- 
tucky, to have a tooth extracted, and making a 
failure of it? Well, that same old tooth got to 
paining me so much that about a week since I had it 
torn out, bringing with it a bit of the jawbone, the 
consequence of which is that my mouth is now so 
sore that I can neither talk nor eat. 



Your sincere friend, 

A. Lincoln. 



252 The Writings of 

CALL FOR WHIG STATE CONVENTION. 

The undersigned, acting, as is believed, in accord- 
ance with the wishes of the Whig party, and in 
comphance with their duties as the Whig Central 
Committee of this State, appoint the third Monday 
of December next for the meeting of a Whig State 
convention, at Springfield, for the purpose of nomi- 
nating candidates for the offices of Governor and 
Lieutenant-Governor of this State for the coming 
election. 

It is recommended that the number of delegates to 
the convention shall conform to the number of repre- 
sentatives entitled under the new apportionment; 
but that in all cases every county vShall be entitled 
to one delegate. 

We would urge upon our political friends in the 
different counties to call meetings immediately for 
the election of delegates. 

It is ardently hoped that the counties will be fully 
represented, in order that the will of the people may 
be expressed in the selection of candidates. 

A. G. Henry, J. F. Speed, A. Lincoln, 
E. D. Baker, Wm. L. May, 

Whig State Central Committee. 

Springfield, Oct. 20, 1841. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

January [3?], 1842. 

My dear Speed: — Feeling, as you know I do, the 
deepest solicitude for the success of the enterprise you 



Abraham Lincoln 253 

are engaged in, I adopt this as the last method I can 
adopt to aid you, in case (which God forbid!) you 
shall need any aid. I do not place what I am going 
to say on paper because I can say it better that way 
than I could by word of mouth, but, were I to say it 
orally before we part, most likely you would forget 
it at the very time when it might do you some good. 
As I think it reasonable that you will feel very badly 
some time between this and the final consummation 
of your purpose, it is intended that you shall read 
this just at such a time. Why I say it is reasonable 
that you will feel very badly yet, is because of three 
special causes added to the general one which I shall 
mention. 

The general cause is, that you are naturally of a 
nervous temperament; and this I say from what I 
have seen of you personally, and what you have told 
me concerning your mother at various times, and 
concerning your brother William at the time his 
wife died. The first special cause is your exposure 
to bad weather on your journey, which my experience 
clearly proves to be very severe on defective nerves. 
The second is the absence of all business and conver- 
sation of friends, which might divert your mind, give 
it occasional rest from the intensity of thought which 
will sometimes wear the sweetest idea threadbare 
and turn it to the bitterness of death. The third is 
the rapid and near approach of that crisis on which 
all your thoughts and feelings concentrate. 

If from all these causes you shall escape and 
go through triumphantly, without another "twinge 
of the soul," I shall be most happily but most 



254 The Writings of 

egregiously deceived. If, on the contrary, you shall, 
as I expect you will at sometime, be agonized and dis- 
tressed, let me, who have some reason to speak with 
judgment on such a subject, beseech you to ascribe 
it to the causes I have mentioned, and not to some 
false and ruinous suggestion of the Devil. 

"But," you will say, "do not your causes apply to 
every one engaged in a like undertaking?" By no 
means. The particular causes, to a greater or less 
extent, perhaps do apply in all cases ; but the general 
one, — nervous debility, which is the key and con- 
ductor of all the particular ones, and without which 
they would be utterly harmless, — ^though it does per- 
tain to you, does not pertain to one in a thousand. 
It is out of this that the painful difference between 
you and the mass of the world springs. 

I know what the painful point with you is at all 
times when you are unhappy ; it is an apprehension 
that you do not love her as you should. What 
nonsense! How came you to court her? Was it 
because you thought she deserved it, and that you 
had given her reason to expect it ? If it was for that 
why did not the same reason make you court Ann 
Todd, and at least twenty others of whom you can 
think, and to whom it would apply with greater 
force than to her ? Did you court her for her wealth ? 
Why, you know she had none. But you say you 
reasoned yourself into it. What do you mean by 
that ? Was it not that you found yourself unable to 
reason yourself out of it? Did you not think, and 
partly form the purpose, of courting her the first 
time you ever saw her or heard of her? What had 



Abraham Lincoln 255 

reason to do with it at that early stage ? There was 
nothing at that time for reason to work upon. 
Whether she was moral, amiable, sensible, or even of 
good character, you did not, nor could then know, 
except, perhaps, you might infer the last from the 
company you found her in. 

All you then did or could know of her was her 
personal appearance and deportment; and these, if 
they impress at all, impress the heart, and not the 
head. 

Say candidly, were not those heavenly black eyes 
the whole basis of all your early reasoning on the 
subject? After you and I had once been at the 
residence, did you not go and take me all the way to 
Lexington and back, for no other purpose but to get 
to see her again, on our return on that evening to 
take a trip for that express object? What earthly 
consideration would you take to find her scouting and 
despising you, and giving herself up to another? 
But of this you have no apprehension ; and therefore 
you cannot bring it home to your feelings. 

I shall be so anxious about you that I shall want 
you to write by every mail. Your friend, 

Lincoln. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, Illinois, February 3, 1842. 

Dear Speed: — Your letter of the 25th January 
came to hand to-day. You well know that I do not 
feel my own sorrows much more keenly than I do 
yours, when I know of them; and yet I assure you I 



256 The Writings of 

was not much hurt by what you wrote me of your 
excessively bad feeHng at the time you wrote. Not 
that I am less capable of sympathizing with you now 
than ever, not that I am less your friend than ever, 
but because I hope and believe that your present 
anxiety and distress about her health and her life 
must and will forever banish those horrid doubts 
which I know you sometimes felt as to the truth of 
your affection for her. If they can once and forever 
be removed (and I almost feel a presentiment that 
the Almighty has sent your present affliction ex- 
pressly for that object), surely nothing can come in 
their stead to fill their immeasurable measure of 
misery. The death-scenes of those we love are surely 
painful enough; but these we are prepared for and 
expect to see : they happen to all, and all know they 
must happen. Painful as they are, they are not an 
unlooked-for sorrow. Should she, as you fear, be 
destined to an early grave, it is indeed a great con- 
solation to know that she is so well prepared to meet 
it. Her religion, which you once disliked so much, I 
will venture you now prize most highly. But I hope 
your melancholy bodings as to her early death are not 
well founded. I even hope that ere this reaches you 
she will have returned with improved and still im- 
proving health, and that you will have met her, and 
forgotten the sorrows of the past in the enjoyments 
of the present. I would say more if I could, but it 
seems that I have said enough. It really appears to 
me that you yourself ought to rejoice, and not sorrow, 
at this indubitable evidence of your undying affec- 
tion for her. Why, Speed, if you did not love her, 



Abraham Lincoln 257 

although you might not wish her death, you would 
most certainly be resigned to it. Perhaps this point 
is no longer a question with you, and my pertinacious 
dwelling upon it is a rude intrusion upon your feel- 
ings. If so, you must pardon me. You know the 
hell I have suffered on that point, and how tender I 
am upon it. You know I do not mean wrong. I 
have been quite clear of "hypo" since you left, 
even better than I was along in the fall, I have seen 

but once. She seemed very cheerful, and so I 

said nothing to her about what we spoke of. 

Old Uncle Billy Hemdon is dead, and it is said this 
evening that Uncle Ben Ferguson will not live. 
This, I believe, is all the news, and enough at that 
unless it were better. Write me immediately on the 
receipt of this. Your friend, as ever, 

Lincoln. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, Illinois, February 13, 1842. 

Dear Speed: — Yours of the ist instant came to 
hand three or four days ago. When this shall reach 
you, you will have been Fanny's husband several 
days. You know my desire to befriend you is ever- 
lasting ; that I will never cease while I know how to 
do anything. But you will always hereafter be on 
ground that I have never occupied, and consequently, 
if advice were needed, I might advise wrong. I do 
fondly hope, however, that you will never again need 
any comfort from abroad. But should I be mistaken 
in this, should excessive pleasure still be accompanied 

VOL.1. — 17. 



258 The Writings of 

with a painful counterpart at times, still let me urge 
you, as I have ever done, to remember, in the depth 
and even agony of despondency, that very shortly 
you are to feel well again. I am now fully convinced 
that you love her as ardently as you are capable of 
loving. Your ever being happy in her presence, and 
your intense anxiety about her health, if there were 
nothing else, would place this beyond all dispute in 
my mind. I incline to think it probable that your 
nerves will fail you occasionally for a while; but 
once you get them firmly guarded now that trouble 
is over forever. I think, if I were you, in case my 
mind were not exactly right, I would avoid being idle. 
I would immediately engage in some business, or go 
to making preparations for it, which would be the 
same thing. If you went through the ceremony 
calmly, or even with sufficient composure not to 
excite alarm in any present, you are safe beyond 
question, and in two or three months, to say the 
most, will be the happiest of men. 

I would desire you to give my particular respects 
to Fanny ; but perhaps you will not wish her to know 
you have received this, lest she should desire to see it. 
Make her write me an answer to my last letter to 
her ; at any rate I would set great value upon a note 
or letter from her. Write me whenever you have 
leisure. 

Yours forever, 

A. Lincoln. 

P. S. — ^I have been quite a man since you left. 



Abraham Lincoln 259 

TO G. B. SHELEDY. 

Springfield, III., Feby. i6, 1842. 

G. B. Sheledy, Esq.: 

Yours of the loth is duly received. Judge Logan 
and myself are doing business together now, and we 
are willing to attend to your cases as you propose. 
As to the terms, we are willing to attend each 
case you prepare and send us for $io (when there 
shall be no opposition) to be sent in advance, or you 
to know that it is safe. It takes $5.75 of cost to 
start upon, that is, $1.75 to clerk, and $2 to each of 
two publishers of papers. Judge Logan thinks it will 
take the balance of $20 to carry a case through. This 
must be advanced from time to time as the services 
are performed, as the officers will not act without. I 
do not know whether you can be admitted an attorney 
of the Federal court in your absence or not; nor is 
it material, as the business can be done in our names. 

Thinking it may aid you a little, I send you one 
of our blank forms of Petitions. It, you will see, is 
framed to be sworn to before the Federal court clerk, 
and, in your cases, will have [to] be so far changed 
as to be sworn to before the clerk of your circuit 
court; and his certificate must be accompanied with 
his official seal. The schedules, too, must be attended 
to. Be sure that they contain the creditors' names, 
their residences, the amounts due each, the debtors' 
names, their residences, and the amounts they owe, 
also all property and where located. 

Also be sure that the schedules are all signed by 
the applicants as well as the Petition. 



26o The Writings of 

Publication will have to be made here in one paper, 
and in one nearest the residence of the applicant. 
Write us in each case where the last advertisement 
is to be sent, whether to you or to what paper. 

I believe I have now said everything that can be of 
any advantage. 

Your friend as ever, 

A. Lincoln. 



TO GEORGE E. PICKETT. 

February 22, 1842. 

I never encourage deceit, and falsehood, especially 
if you have got a bad memory, is the worst enemy a 
fellow can have. The fact is truth is your truest 
friend, no matter what the circumstances are. Not- 
withstanding this copy-book preamble, my boy, I 
am inclined to suggest a little prudence on your part. 
You see I have a congenital aversion to failure, and 
the sudden announcement to your Uncle Andrew of 
the success of your "lamp rubbing" might possibly 
prevent your passing the severe physical examina- 
tion to which you will be subjected in order to enter 
the Military Academy. You see I should like to 
have a perfect soldier credited 1 o dear old Illinois — 
no broken bones, scalp wounds, etc. So I think it 
might be wise to hand this letter from me in to your 
good uncle through his room-window after he has had 
a comfortable dinner, and watch its effect from the top 
of the pigeon-house. 



Abraham Lincoln 261 

I have just told the folks here in Springfield on 
this I nth anniversary of the birth of him whose 
name, mightiest in the cause of civil liberty, still 
mightiest in the cause of moral reformation, we 
mention in solemn awe, in naked, deathless splendor, 
that the one victory we can ever call complete will be 
that one which proclaims that there is not one slave 
or one drunkard on the face of God's green earth. 
Recruit for this victory. 

Now, boy, on your march, don't you go and forget 
the old maxim that ' ' one drop of honey catches more 
flies than a half -gallon of gall." Load your musket 
with this maxim, and smoke it in your pipe. 



ADDRESS BEFORE THE SPRINGFIELD WASHINGTONIAN 
TEMPERANCE SOCIETY, FEBRUARY 22, 1842. 

Although the temperance cause has been in pro- 
gress for near twenty years, it is apparent to all that 
it is just now being crowned with a degree of suc- 
cess hitherto unparalleled. 

The list of its friends is daily swelled by the addi- 
tions of fifties, of hundreds, and of thousands. The 
cause itself seems suddenly transformed from a cold 
abstract theory to a living, breathing, active, and 
powerful chieftain, going forth "conquering and to 
conquer." The citadels of his great adversary 
are daily being stormed and dismantled ; his temple 
and his altars, where the rites of his idolatrous wor- 
ship have long been performed, and where human 



262 The Writings of 

sacrifices have long been wont to be made, are 
daily desecrated and deserted. The triumph of the 
conqueror's fame is sounding from hill to hill, from 
sea to sea, and from land to land, and calling millions 
to his standard at a blast. 

For this new and splendid success we heartily re- 
joice. That that success is so much greater now than 
heretofore is doubtless owing to rational causes ; and 
if we would have it continue, we shall do well to 
inquire what those causes are. 

The warfare heretofore waged against the demon 
intemperance has somehow or other been erroneous. 
Either the champions engaged or the tactics they 
adopted have not been the most proper. These 
champions for the most part have been preachers, 
lawyers, and hired agents. Between these and the 
mass of mankind there is a want of approachability, 
if the term be admissible, partially, at least, fatal to 
their success. They are supposed to have no sym- 
pathy of feeling or interest with thOvSe very persons 
whom it is their object to convince and persuade. 

And again, it is so common and so easy to ascribe 
motives to men of these classes other than those they 
profess to act upon. The preacher, it is said, ad- 
vocates temperance because he is a fanatic, and 
desires a union of the Church and State; the lawyer 
from his pride and vanity of hearing himself speak; 
and the hired agent for his salary. But when one 
who has long been known as a victim of intemperance 
bursts the fetters that have bound him, and appears 
before his neighbors "clothed and in his right mind," 
a redeemed specimen of long-lost humanity, and 



Abraham Lincoln 263 

stands up, with tears of joy trembhng in his eyes, to 
tell of the miseries once endured, now to be endured 
no more forever; of his once naked and starving 
children, now clad and fed comfortably; of a wife 
long weighed down with woe, weeping, and a broken 
heart, now restored to health, happiness, and a 
renewed affection ; and how easily it is all done, once 
it is resolved to be done ; how simple his language! — 
there is a logic and an eloquence in it that few with 
human feelings can resist. They cannot say that he 
desires a union of Church and State, for he is not a 
church member ; they cannot say he is vain of hearing 
himself speak, for his whole demeanor shows he would 
gladly avoid speaking at all; they cannot say he 
speaks for pay, for he receives none, and asks for 
none. Nor can his sincerity in any way be doubted, 
or his sympathy for those he would persuade to 
imitate his example be denied. 

In my judgment, it is to the battles of this new 
class of champions that our late success is greatly, 
perhaps chiefly, owing. But, had the old-school 
champions themselves been of the most wise select- 
ing, was their system of tactics the most judicious? 
It seems to me it was not. Too much denunciation 
against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers was indulged 
in. This I think was both impolitic and unjust. It 
was impolitic, because it is not much in the nature of 
man to be driven to anything ; still less to be driven 
about that which is exclusively his own business; 
and least of all where such driving is to be submitted 
to at the expense of pecuniary interest or burning 
appetite. When the dram-seller and drinker were 



264 The Writings of 

incessantly told — ^not in accents of entreaty and per- 
suasion, diffidently addressed by erring man to an 
erring brother, but in the thundering tones of 
anathema and denunciation with which the lordly 
judge often groups together all the crimes of the 
felon's life, and thrusts them in his face just ere he 
passes sentence of death upon him — ^that they were 
the authors of all the vice and misery and crime in 
the land; that they were the manufacturers and 
material of all the thieves and robbers and murderers 
that infest the earth; that their houses were the 
workshops of the devil ; and that their persons should 
be shunned by all the good and virtuous, as moral 
pestilences — I say, when they were told all this, and 
in this way, it is not wonderful that they were slow 
to acknowledge the truth of such denunciations, and 
to join the ranks of their denoimcers in a hue and 
cry against themselves. 

To have expected them to do otherwise than they 
did — to have expected them not to meet denuncia- 
tion with denunciation, crimination with crimina- 
tion, and anathema with anathema — ^was to expect 
a reversal of human nature, which is God's decree 
and can never be reversed. 

When the conduct of men is designed to be influ- 
enced, persuasion, kind, unassuming persuasion, 
should ever be adopted. It is an old and a true 
maxim that ' ' a drop of honey catches more flies than 
a gallon of gall." So with men. If you would win 
a man to your cause, first convince him that you are 
his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that 
catches his heart, which, say what he will, is the 



Abraham Lincoln 265 

great highroad to his reason, and which, when once 
gained, you will find but little trouble in convincing 
his judgment of the justice of your cause, if indeed 
that cause really be a just one. On the contrary, 
assume to dictate to his judgment, or to command 
his action, or to mark him as one to be shunned and 
despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all 
the avenues to his head and his heart; and though 
your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the 
heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than 
steel can be made, and though you throw it with 
more than herculean force and precision, you shall be 
no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard 
shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and 
so must he be understood by those who would lead 
him, even to his own best interests. 

On this point the Washingtonians greatly excel 
the temperance advocates of former times. Those 
whom they desire to convince and persuade are their 
old friends and companions. They know they are 
not demons, nor even the worst of men ; they know 
that generally they are kind, generous, and charitable 
even beyond the example of their more staid and 
sober neighbors. They are practical philanthro- 
pists ; and they glow with a generous and brotherly 
zeal that mere theorizers are incapable of feeling. 
Benevolence and charity possess their hearts entirely ; 
and out of the abundance of their hearts their tongues 
give utterance; "love through all their actions 
runs, and all their words are mild." In this spirit 
they speak and act, and in the same they are heard 
and regarded. And when such is the temper of the 



266 The Writings of 

advocate, and such of the audience, no good cause 
can be unsuccessful. But I have said that denuncia- 
tions against dram-sellers and dram-drinkers are 
unjust, as well as impolitic. Let us see. I have not 
inquired at what period of time the use of intoxicat- 
ing liquors commenced ; nor is it important to know. 
It is sufficient that, to all of us who now inhabit the 
world, the practice of drinking them is just as old as 
the world itself — ^that is, we have seen the one just as 
long as we have seen the other. When all such of us 
as have now reached the years of maturity first 
opened our eyes upon the stage of existence, we 
found intoxicating liquor recognized by everybody, 
used by everybody, repudiated by nobody. It com- 
monly entered into the first draught of the infant 
and the last draught of the dying man. From the 
sideboard of the parson down to the ragged pocket 
of the houseless loafer, it was constantly found. 
Physicians prescribed it in this, that, and the other 
disease; government provided it for soldiers and 
sailors; and to have a rolling or raising, a husking 
or "hoedown," anywhere about without it was posi- 
tively insufferable. So, too, it was ever3rwhere a 
respectable article of manufacture and merchandise. 
The making of it was regarded as an honorable liveli- 
hood, and he who could make most was the most 
enterprising and respectable. Large and small man- 
ufactories of it were everywhere erected, in which 
all the earthly goods of their owners were invested. 
Wagons drew it from town to town; boats bore it 
from clime to clime, and the winds wafted it from 
nation to nation ; and merchants bought and sold it, 



Abraham Lincoln 267 

by wholesale and retail, with precisely the same 
feelings on the part of the seller, buyer, and bystander 
as are felt at the selling and buying of ploughs, beef, 
bacon, or any other of the real necessaries of Hfe. 
Universal public opinion not only tolerated but 
recognized and adopted its use. 

It is true that even then it was known and ac- 
knowledged that many were greatly injured by it; 
but none seemed to think the injury arose from the 
use of a bad thing, but from the abuse of a very good 
thing. The victims of it were to be pitied and com- 
passionated, just as are the heirs of consumption and 
other hereditary diseases. Their failing was treated 
as a misfortune, and not as a crime, or even as a dis- 
grace. If, then, what I have been saying is true, 
is it wonderful that some should think and act now 
as all thought and acted twenty years ago ? and is it 
just to assail, condemn, or despise them for doing so? 
The universal sense of mankind on any subject is an 
argument, or at least an influence, not easily over- 
come. The success of the argument in favor of the 
existence of an overruling Providence mainly de- 
pends upon that sense ; and men ought not in justice 
to be denounced for yielding to it in any case, or 
giving it up slowly, especially when they are backed 
by interest, fixed habits, or burning appetites. 

Another error, as it seems to me, into which the 
old reformers fell, was the position that all habitual 
drunkards were utterly incorrigible, and therefore 
must be turned adrift and damned without remedy 
in order that the grace of temperance might abound, 
to the temperate then, and to all mankind some 



268 The Writings of 

hundreds of years thereafter. There is in this some- 
thing so repugnant to humanity, so uncharitable, so 
cold-blooded and feelingless, that it never did nor 
ever can enlist the enthusiasm of a popular cause. 
"We could not love the man who taught it — ^we could 
not hear him with patience. The heart could not 
throw open its portals to it, the generous man could 
not adopt it — it could not mix with his blood. It 
looked so fiendishly selfish, so like throwing fathers 
and brothers overboard to lighten the boat for our 
security, that the noble-minded shrank from the 
manifest meanness of the thing. And besides this, 
the benefits of a reformation to be effected by such 
a system were too remote in point of time to warmly 
engage many in its behalf. Few can be 'induced to 
labor exclusively for posterity, and none will do it 
enthusiastically. Posterity has done nothing for us ; 
and, theorize on it as we may, practically we shall do 
very little for it, tmless we are made to think we are 
at the same time doing something for ourselves. 

What an ignorance of human nature does it exhibit 
to ask or to expect a whole community to rise up and 
labor for the temporal happiness of others, after 
themselves shall be consigned to the dust, a majority 
of which community take no pains whatever to 
secure their own eternal welfare at no more distant 
day! Great distance in either time or space has 
wonderful power to lull and render quiescent the 
human mind. Pleasures to be enjoyed, or pains to 
be endured, after we shall be dead and gone are but 
little regarded even in our own cases, and much less 
in the cases of others. Still, in addition to this there 



Abraham Lincoln 269 

is something so ludicrous in promises of good or 
threats of evil a great way off as to render the whole 
subject with which they are connected easily turned 
into ridicule. "Better lay down that spade you are 
stealing, Paddy; if you don't you '11 pay for it at the 
day of judgment." "Be the powers, if ye '11 credit 
me so long I '11 take another jist." 

By the Washingtonians this system of consigning 
the habitual drunkard to hopeless ruin is repudiated. 
They adopt a more enlarged philanthropy; they go 
for present as well as future good. They labor for 
all now living, as well as hereafter to live. They 
teach hope to all — despair to none. As applying to 
their cause, they deny the doctrine of unpardonable 
sin; as in Christianity it is taught, so in this they 
teach — "While the lamp holds out to bum, The 
vilest sinner may return." And, what is a matter 
of more profound congratulation, they, by experi- 
ment upon experiment and example upon example, 
prove the maxim to be no less true in the one case 
than in the other. On every hand we behold those 
who but yesterday were the chief of sinners, now the 
chief apostles of the cause. Drunken devils are cast 
out by ones, by sevens, by legions ; and their unfortu- 
nate victims, like the poor possessed who were re- 
deemed from their long and lonely wanderings in 
the tombs, are publishing to the ends of the earth 
how great things have been done for them. 

To these new champions and this new system of 
tactics our late success is mainly owing, and to them 
we must mainly look for the final consummation. 
The ball is now rolling gloriously on, and none are so 



270 The Writings of 

able as they to increase its speed and its bulk, to add 
to its momentum and its magnitude — even though 
unlearned in letters, for this task none are so well 
educated. To fit them for this work they have been 
taught in the true school. They have been in that 
gulf from which they would teach others the means 
of escape. They have passed that prison wall 
which others have long declared impassable; and 
who that has not shall dare to weigh opinions with 
them as to the mode of passing ? 

But if it be true, as I have insisted, that those who 
have suffered by intemperance personally, and have 
reformed, are the most powerful and efficient instru- 
ments to push the reformation to ultimate success, it 
does not follow that those who have not suffered 
have no part left them to perform. Whether or not 
the world would be vastly benefited by a total and 
final banishment from it of all intoxicating drinks 
seems to me not now an open question. Three 
fourths of mankind confess the affirmative with their 
tongues, and, I believe, all the rest acknowledge it in 
their hearts. 

Ought any, then, to refuse their aid in doing what 
good the good of the whole demands ? Shall he who 
cannot do much be for that reason excused if he do 
nothing? "But," says one, "what good can I do by 
signing the pledge? I never drank, even without 
signing." This question has already been asked and 
answered more than a million of times. Let it be 
answered once more. For the man suddenly or in 
any other way to break off from the use of drams, 
who has indulged in them for a long course of years 



Abraham Lincoln 271 

and until his appetite for them has grown ten- or a 
hundred-fold stronger and more craving than any 
natural appetite can be, requires a most powerful 
moral effort. In such an undertaking he needs e very- 
moral support and influence that can possibly be 
brought to his aid and thrown around him. And not 
only so, but every moral prop should be taken from 
whatever argument might rise in his mind to lure 
him to his backsliding. When he casts his eyes 
around him, he should be able to see all that he 
respects, all that he admires, all that he loves, kind- 
ly and anxiously pointing him onward, and none 
beckoning him back to his former miserable "wal- 
lowing in the mire." 

But it is said by some that men will think and act 
for themselves; that none will disuse spirits or 
anything else because his neighbors do; and that 
moral influence is not that powerful engine contended 
for. Let us examine this. Let me ask the man 
who could maintain this position most stiffly, what 
compensation he will accept to go to church some 
Sunday and sit during the sermon with his wife's 
bonnet upon his head? Not a trifle, I '11 venture. 
And why not? There would be nothing irreligious 
in it, nothing immoral, nothing uncomfortable — 
then why not? Is it not because there would be 
something egregiously unfashionable in it? Then 
it is the influence of fashion ; and what is the influ- 
ence of fashion but the influence that other people's 
actions have on our actions — ^the strong inclina- 
tion each of us feels to do as we see all our neighbors 
do? Nor is the influence of fashion confined to any 



272 



The Writings of 



particular thing or class of things ; it is just as strong 
on one subject as another. Let us make it as un- 
fashionable to withhold our names from the temper- 
ance cause as for husbands to wear their wives' 
bonnets to church, and instances will be just as rare 
in the one case as the other. 

"But," say some, "we are no drunkards, and we 
shall not acknowledge ourselves such by joining a 
reformed drunkard's society, whatever o\ir influence 
might be." Surely no Christian will adhere to this 
objection. If they believe as they profess, that 
Omnipotence condescended to take on himself the 
form of sinful man, and as such to die an ignominious 
death for their sakes, surely they will not refuse sub- 
mission to the infinitely lesser condescension, for the 
temporal, and perhaps eternal, salvation of a large, 
erring, and unfortunate class of their fellow-creatures. 
Nor is the condescension very great. In my judg- 
ment such of us as have never fallen victims have 
been spared more by the absence of appetite than 
from any mental or moral superiority over those who 
have. Indeed, I believe if we take habitual drunk- 
ards as a class, their heads and their hearts will bear 
an advantageous comparison with those of any other 
class. There seems ever to have been a proneness in 
the brilliant and warm-blooded to fall into this vice — 
the demon of intemperance ever seems to have de- 
lighted in sucking the blood of genius and of gen- 
erosity. What one of us but can call to mind some 
relative, more promising in youth than all his fellows, 
who has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity? He ever 
seems to have gone forth like the Egyptian angel 



Abraham Lincoln 273 

of death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the 
fairest bom of every family. Shall he now be ar- 
rested in his desolating career? In that arrest all 
can give aid that will ; and who shall be excused that 
can and will not ? Far around as human breath has 
ever blown he keeps our fathers, our brothers, our 
sons, and our friends prostrate in the chains of moral 
death. To all the living everywhere we cry, "Come 
soimd the moral trump, that these may rise and 
stand up an exceeding great army." "Come from 
the four winds, O breath! and breathe upon these 
slain that they may live." If the relative grandeur 
of revolutions shall be estimated by the great amount 
of human misery they alleviate, and the small 
amount they inflict, then indeed will this be the 
grandest the world shall ever have seen. 

Of our political revolution of '76 we are all justly 
proud. It has given us a degree of political free- 
dom far exceeding that of any other nation of the 
earth. In it the world has found a solution of the 
long-mooted problem as to the capability of man to 
govern himself. In it was the germ which has 
vegetated, and still is to grow and expand into the 
universal liberty of mankind. But, with all these 
glorious results, past, present, and to come, it had its 
evils too. It breathed forth famine, swam in blood, 
and rode in fire ; and long, long after, the orphan's cry 
and the widow's wail continued to break the sad 
silence that ensued. These were the price, the in- 
evitable price, paid for the blessings it bought. 

Turn now to the temperance revolution. In it 
we shall find a stronger bondage broken, a viler 



VOL.1. li 



274 The Writings of 

slavery manumitted, a greater tyrant deposed ; in it, 
more of want supplied, more disease healed, more 
sorrow assuaged. By it no orphans starving, no 
widows weeping. By it none wounded in feeling, 
none injured in interest; even the dram-maker and 
dram-seller will have glided into other occupations 
so gradually as never to have felt the change, and will 
stand ready to join all others in the universal song of 
gladness. And what a noble ally this to the cause of 
political freedom ; with such an aid its march cannot 
fail to be on and on, till every son of earth shall drink 
in rich fruition the sorrow-quenching draughts of 
perfect liberty. Happy day when — all appetites 

^^fjj^/i^vr>-^'-' controlled, all poisons subdued, all matter sub- 
-^-^jected — mind, all-conquering mind, shall live and 

^}\() move, the monarch of the world. Glorious consum- 
mation! Hail, fall of fury! Reign of reason, all 
hail! 

And when the victory shall be complete, — ^when 
there shall be neither a slave nor a drunkard on the 
earth, — ^how proud the title of that land which may 
truly claim to be the birthplace and the cradle of both 
those revolutions that shall have ended in that 
victory. How nobly distinguished that people who 
shall have planted and nurtured to maturity both the 
political and moral freedom of their species. 

This is the one hundred and tenth anniversary of 
the birthday of Washington; we are met to cele- 
brate this day. Washington is the mightiest name 
of earth — ^long since mightiest in the cause of civil 
liberty, still mightiest in moral reformation. On 
that name no eulogy is expected. It cannot be. To 



Abraham Lincoln 275 

add brightness to the sun or glory to the name of 
Washington is alike impossible. Let none attempt 
it. In solemn awe pronounce the name, and in its 
naked deathless splendor leave it shining on. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, February 25, 1842. 

Dear Speed: — ^Yours of the i6th instant, announc- 
ing that Miss Fanny and you are "no more twain, 
but one flesh," reached me this morning. I have 
no way of telling you how much happiness I wish 
you both, though I believe you both can conceive it. 
I feel somewhat jealous of both of you now: you will 
be so exclusively concerned for one another, that I 
shall be forgotten entirely. My acquaintance with 
Miss Fanny (I call her this, lest you should think I 
am speaking of your mother) was too short for me 
to reasonably hope to long be remembered by her; 
and still I am sure I shall not forget her soon. Try 
if you cannot remind her of that debt she owes me — 
and be sure you do not interfere to prevent her 
paying it. 

I regret to learn that you have resolved to not 
return to Illinois. I shall be very lonesome without 
you. How miserably things seem to be arranged in 
this world! If we have no friends, we have no pleas- 
ure ; and if we have them, we are sure to lose them, 
and be doubly pained by the loss. I did hope she 
and you would make your home here; but I own I 
have no right to insist. You owe obligations to her 



276 The Writings of 

ten thousand times more sacred than you can owe 
to others, and in that Hght let them be respected and 
observed. It is natural that she should desire to 
remain with her relatives and friends. As to friends, 
however, she could not need them anywhere: she 
would have them in abundance here. 

Give my kind remembrance to Mr. Williamson and 
his family, particularly Miss Elizabeth ; also to your 
mother, brother, and sisters. Ask little Eliza Davis 
if she will ride to town with me if I come there again. 
And finally, give Fanny a double reciprocation of all 
the love she sent me. Write me often, and believe 
me 

Yours forever, 

Lincoln. 

P. S. — Poor Easthouse is gone at last. He died 
awhile before day this morning. They say he was 
very loath to die. . . . 

L. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, February 25, 1842. 

Dear Speed : — I received yours of the 1 2th written 
the day you went down to William's place, some days 
since, but delayed answering it till I should receive 
the promised one of the i6th, which came last night. 
I opened the letter with intense anxiety and trepida- 
tion ; so much so, that, although it turned out better 
than I expected, I have hardly yet, at a distance of 
ten hours, become calm. 

I tell you, Speed, our forebodings (for which you 



Abraham Lincoln 277 

and I are peculiar) are all the worst sort of nonsense. 
I fancied, from the time I received your letter of 
Saturday, that the one of Wednesday was never to 
come, and yet it did come, and what is more, it is per- 
fectly clear, both from its tone and handwriting, that 
you were much happier, or, if you think the term pre- 
ferable, less miserable, when you wrote it than when 
you wrote the last one before. You had so obviously 
improved at the very time I so much fancied you 
would have grown worse. You say that something 
indescribably horrible and alarming still haunts you. 
You will not say that three months from now, I will 
venture. When your nerves once get steady now, 
the whole trouble will be over forever. Nor should 
you become impatient at their being even very slow 
in becoming steady. Again you say, you much fear 
that that Elysium of which you have dreamed so 
much is never to be realized. Well, if it shall not, 
I dare swear it will not be the fault of her who is now 
your wife. I now have no doubt that it is the 
peculiar misfortune of both 3^ou and me to dream 
dreams of Elysium far exceeding all that anything 
earthly can realize. Far short of your dreams as 
3^ou may be, no woman could do more to realize them 
than that same black-eyed Fanny. If you could but 
contemplate her through my imagination, it would 
appear ridiculous to you that any one should for a 
moment think of being unhappy with her. My old 
father used to have a saying that "If you make a bad 
bargain, hug it all the tighter" ; and it occurs to me 
that if the bargain you have just closed can possibly 
be called a bad one, it is certainly the most pleasant 



278 The Writings of 

one for applying that maxim to which my fancy can 
by any effort picture. 

I write another letter, inclosing this, which you 
can show her, if she desires it, I do this because 
she would think strangely, perhaps, should you tell 
her that you received no letters from me, or, telling 
her you do, refuse to let her see them. I close this, 
entertaining the confident hope that every successive 
letter I shall have from you (which I here pray may 
not be few, nor far between) may show you possess- 
ing a more steady hand and cheerful heart than the 

last preceding it. 

As ever, your friend, 

Lincoln. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, March 27, 1842. 

Dear Speed: — ^Yours of the loth instant was re- 
ceived three or four days since. You know I am 
sincere when I tell you the pleasure its contents gave 
me was, and is, inexpressible. As to your farm 
matter, I have no sympathy with you. I have no 
farm, nor ever expect to have, and consequently 
have not studied the subject enough to be much 
interested with it. I can only say that I am glad 
you are satisfied and pleased with it. But on that 
other subject, to me of the most intense interest 
whether in joy or sorrow, I never had the power to 
withhold my sympathy from you. It cannot be told 
how it now thrills me with joy to hear you say you are 
"far happier than you ever expected to be." That 



Abraham Lincoln 279 

much I know is enough. I know you too well to 
suppose your expectations were not, at least, some- 
times extravagant, and if the reality exceeds them 
all, I say. Enough, dear Lord. I am not going 
beyond the truth when I tell you that the short space 
it took me to read your last letter gave me more 
pleasure than the total sum of all I have enjoyed 
since the fatal ist of January, 1841. Since then it 
seems to me I should have been entirely happy, but 
for the never-absent idea that there is one still 
unhappy whom I have contributed to make so. 
That still kills my soul. I cannot but reproach 
myself for even wishing to be happy while she is 
otherwise. She accompanied a large party on the 
railroad cars to Jacksonville last Monday, and on her 
return spoke, so that I heard of it, of having enjoyed 
the trip exceedingly. God be praised for that. 

You know with what sleepless vigilance I have 
watched you ever since the commencement of your 
affair ; and although I am almost confident it is use- 
less, I cannot forbear once more to say that I think 
it is even yet possible for your spirits to flag down 
and leave you miserable. If they should, don't fail 
to remember that they cannot long remain so. One 
thing I can tell you which I know you will be glad to 

hear, and that is that I have seen and scrutinized 

her feelings as well as I could, and am fully convinced 
she is far happier now than she has been for the last 
fifteen months past. 

You will see by the last Sangamon Journal that I 
made a temperance speech on the 2 2d of February, 
which I claim that Fanny and you shall read as an 



28o The Writings of 

act of charity to me ; for I cannot learn that anybody 
else has read it, or is likely to. Fortunately it is not 
very long, and I shall deem it a sufficient compliance 
with my request if one of you listens while the other 
reads it. 

As to your Lockridge matter, it is only necessary 
to say that there has been no court since you left, and 
that the next commences to-morrow morning, during 
which I suppose we cannot fail to get a judgment. 

I wish you would learn of Everett what he would 
take, over and above a discharge for all the trouble 
we have been at, to take his business out of our 
hands and give it to somebody else. It is impos- 
sible to collect money on that or any other claim 
here now; and although you know I am not a very 
petulant man, I declare I am almost out of patience 
with Mr. Everett's importunity. It seems like he 
not only writes all the letters he can himself, but gets 
everybody else in Louisville and vicinity to be con- 
stantly writing to us about his claim. I have always 
said that Mr. Everett is a very clever fellow, and I 
am very sorry he cannot be obliged ; but it does seem 
to me he ought to know we are interested to collect 
his claim, and therefore would do it if we could. 

I am neither joking nor in a pet when I say we 
would thank him to transfer his business to some 
other, without any compensation for what we have 
done, provided he will see the court cost paid, for 
which we are security. 

The sweet violet you inclosed came safely to hand, 
but it was so dry, and mashed so flat, that it crum- 
bled to dust at the first attempt to handle it. The 



Abraham Lincoln 281 

juice that mashed out of it stained a place in the 
letter, which I mean to preserve and cherish for the 
sake of her who procured it to be sent. My renewed 
good wishes to her in particular, and generally to all 
such of your relations who know me. 

As ever, 
Lincoln. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, Illinois, July 4, 1842. 

Dear Speed : — ^Yours of the 1 6th June was received 
only a day or two since. It was not mailed at Louis- 
ville till the 25th. You speak of the great time that 
has elapsed since I wrote you. Let me explain that. 
Your letter reached here a day or two after I 
started on the circuit. I was gone five or six weeks, 
so that I got the letters only a few weeks before 
Butler started to your country. I thought it 
scarcely worth while to write you the news which he 
could and would tell you more in detail. On his 
return he told me you would write me soon, and so I 
waited for your letter. As to my having been dis- 
pleased with your advice, surely you know better 
than that. I know you do, and therefore will not 
labor to convince you. True, that subject is painful 
to me ; but it is not your silence, or the silence of all 
the world, that can make me forget it. I acknow- 
ledge the correctness of your advice too ; but before I 
resolve to do the one thing or the other, I must gain 
my confidence in my own ability to keep my resolves 



282 The Writings of 

when they are made. In that abihty you know I 
once prided myself as the only or chief gem of my 
character ; that gem I lost — ^how and where you know 
too well. I have not yet regained it ; and until I do, 
I cannot trust myself in any matter of much import- 
ance. I believe now that had you understood my 
case at the time as well as I understand yours after- 
ward, by the aid you would have given me I should 
have sailed through clear, but that does not now 
afford me sufficient confidence to begin that or the 
like of that again. 

You make a kind acknowledgment of your obliga- 
tions to me for your present happiness. I am pleased 
with that acknowledgment. But a thousand times 
more am I pleased to know that you enjoy a degree 
of happiness worthy of an acknowledgment. The 
truth is, I am not sure that there was any merit with 
me in the part I took in your difficulty ; I was drawn 
to it by a fate. If I would I could not have done less 
than I did. I always was superstitious; I believe 
God made me one of the instruments of bringing 
your Fanny and you together, which union I have no 
doubt He had fore-ordained. Whatever He designs 
He will do for me yet. "Stand still, and see the 
salvation of the Lord" is my text just now. If, 
as you say, you have told Fanny all, I should have 
no objection to her seeing this letter, but for its 
reference to our friend here : let her seeing it depend 
upon whether she has ever known anything of my 
affairs ; and if she has not, do not let her. 

I do not think I can come to Kentucky this season. 
I am so poor and make so little headway in the 



Abraham Lincoln 283 

world, that I drop back in a month of idleness as 
much as I gain in a year's sowing. I should like to 
visit you again. I should like to see that "sis" of 
yours that was absent when I was there, though I 
suppose she would run away again if she were to hear 
I was coming. 

My respects and esteem to all your friends there, 
and, by your permission, my love to your Fanny. 

Ever yours, 
Lincoln. 



A LETTER FROM THE LOST TOWNSHIPS.^ 

Lost Townships, August 27, 1842. 

Dear Mr. Printer: 

I see you printed that long letter I sent you a 
spell ago. I'm quite encouraged by it, and can't 
keep from writing again. I think the printing of 
my letters will be a good thing all round — it will 
give me the benefit of being known by the world, 
and give the world the advantage of knowing what 's 
going on in the Lost Townships, and give your 
paper respectability besides. So here comes another. 
Yesterday afternoon I hurried through cleaning up 

the dinner dishes and stepped over to neighbor S 

to see if his wife Peggy was as well as mout be 

« Article written by Lincoln for the Sangamon Journal in ridicule 
of James Shields, who, as State Auditor, had declined to receive State 
Bank notes in payment of taxes. The above letter purported to come 
from a poor widow who, though supplied with State Bank paper, could 
not obtain a receipt for her tax bill. This, and another subsequent 
letter by Mary Todd, brought about the "Lincoln-Shields Duel." 



284 The Writings of 

expected, and hear what they called the baby. 
Well, when I got there and just turned round the 
comer of his log cabin, there he was, setting on the 
doorstep reading a newspaper. "How are you, 
Jeff?" says I. He sorter started when he heard me, 
for he hadn't seen me before. "Why," says he, 
"I'm mad as the devil. Aunt 'Becca!" "What 
about?" says I; "ain't its hair the right color? 
None of that nonsense, Jeff; there ain't an honester 
woman in the Lost Townships than " — "Than who ? " 
says he; "what the mischief are you about?" I 
began to see I was running the wrong trail, and so 
says I, "Oh! nothing: I guess I was mistaken a little, 
that 's all. But what is it you 're mad about?" 

"Why," says he, "I 've been tugging ever since 
harvest, getting out wheat and hauling it to the 
river to raise State Bank paper enough to pay my 
tax this year and a little school debt I owe; and 
now, just as I 've got it, here I open this infernal 
Extra Register, expecting to find it full of 'Glo- 
rious Democratic Victories' and 'High Comb'd 
Cocks,' when, lo and behold! I find a set of fellows, 
calling themselves officers of the State, have forbid- 
den the tax collectors and school commissioners to 
receive State paper at all; and so here it is dead on 
my hands. I don't now believe all the plunder I 've 
got will fetch ready cash enough to pay my taxes 
and that school debt." 

I was a good deal thunderstruck myself ; for that 
was the first I had heard of the proclamation, and 
my old man was pretty much in the same fix with 
Jeff. We both stood a moment staring at one 



Abraham Lincoln 285 

another without knowing what to say. At last says 

I, "Mr. S , let me look at that paper." He 

handed it to me, when I read the proclamation 
over. 

"There now," says he, "did you ever see such a 
piece of impudence and imposition as that?" I 
saw Jeff was in a good tune for saying some ill- 
natured things, and so I tho't I would just argue a 
little on the contrary side, and make him rant a 
spell if I could. "Why," says I, looking as digni- 
fied and thoughtful as I could, "it seems pretty 
tough, to be sure, to have to raise silver where 
there 's none to be raised; but then, you see, 'there 
will be danger of loss' if it ain't done." 

"Loss! damnation!" says he. "I defy Daniel 
Webster, I defy King Solomon, I defy the world — 
I defy — I defy — ^yes, I defy even you. Aunt 'Becca, 
to show how the people can lose anything by pay- 
ing their taxes in State paper." 

"Well," says I, "you see what the officers of State 
say about it, and they are a desamin' set of men. 
But," says I, ''I guess you're mistaken about what 
the proclamation says. It don't say the people will 
lose anything by the paper money being taken for 
taxes. It only says 'there will be danger of loss'; 
and though it is tolerable plain that the people can't 
lose by paying their taxes in something they can 
get easier than silver, instead of having to pay sil- 
ver; and though it's just as plain that the State 
can't lose by taking State Bank paper, however low 
it may be, while she owes the bank more than the 
whole revenue, and can pay that paper over on her 



286 The Writings of 

debt, dollar for dollar; — still there is danger of loss 
to the 'officers of State'; and you know, Jeff, we 
can't get along without officers of State." 

"Damn officers of State!" says he; "that's what 
Whigs are always hurrahing for." 

"Now, don't swear so, Jeff," says I, "you know 
I belong to the meetin', and swearin' hurts my 
feelings." 

"Beg pardon, Aunt 'Becca," says he; "but I do 
say it 's enough to make Dr. Goddard swear, to have 
tax to pay in silver, for nothing only that Ford 
may get his two thousand a year, and Shields his 
twenty-four hundred a year, and Carpenter his six- 
teen hundred a year, and all without ' danger of loss ' 
by taking it in State paper. Yes, yes: it's plain 
enough now what these officers of State mean by 
' danger of loss.' Wash, I s'pose, actually lost fifteen 
hundred dollars out of the three thousand that two 
of these 'officers of State' let him steal from the 
treasury, by being compelled to take it in State 
paper. Wonder if we don't have a proclamation be- 
fore long, commanding us to make up this loss to 
Wash in silver. ' ' 

And so he went on till his breath run out, and he 
had to stop. I couldn't think of anything to say 
just then, and so I begun to look over the paper 
again. "Ay! here's another proclamation, or some- 
thing like it." 

"Another?" says Jeff; "and whose egg is it, 
pray?" 

I looked to the bottom of it, and read aloud, 
**Your obedient servant, James Shields, Auditor." 



i 



Abraham Lincoln 287 

*'Aha!" says Jeff, "one of them same three fel- 
lows again. Well, read it, and let's hear what of 
it." 

I read on till I came to where it says, "The object 
of this measure is to suspend the collection of the 
revenue for the current year." 

"Now stop, now stop!" says he; "that's a lie 
a'ready, and I don't want to hear of it." 

"Oh, maybe not," says I. 

"I say it — is — a — ^lie. Suspend the collection, 
indeed! Will the collectors, that have taken their 
oaths to make the collection, dare to suspend it? 
Is there anything in law requiring them to perjure 
themselves at the bidding of James Shields ? 

' ' Will the greedy gullet of the penitentiary be sat- 
isfied with swallowing him instead of all of them, if 
they should venture to obey him? And would he 
not discover some 'danger of loss,' and be off about 
the time it came to taking their places ? 

"And suppose the people attempt to suspend, 
by refusing to pay; what then? The collectors 
would just jerk up their horses and cows, and 
the like, and sell them to the highest bidder for 
silver in hand, without valuation or redemption. 
Why, Shields didn't believe that story himself; it 
was never meant for the truth. If it was true, why 
was it not writ till five days after the pr clamation ? 
Why did n't Carlin and Carpenter sign it as well as 
Shields? Answer me that, Aunt 'Becca. I say it's 
a lie, and not a well told one at that. It grins out 
like a copper dollar. Shields is a fool as well as a 
liar. With him truth is out of the question; and 



288 The Writings of 

as for getting a good, bright, passable He out of 
him, you might as well try to strike fire from a cake 
of tallow. I stick to it, it's all an infernal Whig 
lie!" 

' ' A Whig lie ! Highty tighty ! " 

"Yes, a Whig lie; and it 's just like everything 
the cursed British Whigs do. First they '11 do some 
divilment, and then they '11 tell a lie to hide it. 
And they don't care how plain a lie it is; they 
think they can cram any sort of a one down the 
throats of the ignorant Locofocos, as they call the 
Democrats, ' ' 

"Why, Jeff, you 're crazy: you don't mean to say 
Shields is a Whig!" 

"Yes, I do." 

"Why, look here! the proclamation is in your 
own Democratic paper, as you call it." 

' ' I know it ; and what of that ? They only printed 
it to let us Democrats see the deviltry the Whigs 
are at." 

"Well, but Shields is the auditor of this Loco — 
I mean this Democratic State." 

"So he is, and Tyler appointed him to office." 

"Tyler appointed him?" 

"Yes (if you must chaw it over), Tyler appointed 
him; or, if it was n't him, it was old Granny Harri- 
son, and that's all one. I tell you, Aunt 'Becca, 
there 's no mistake about his being a Whig. Why, 
his very looks shows it ; everything about him shows 
it: if I was deaf and blind, I could tell him by the 
smell. I seed him when I was down in Springfield 
last winter. They had a sort of a gatherin' there one 



Abraham Lincoln 289 

night among the grandees, they called a fair. All 
the gals about town was there, and all the handsome 
widows and married women, finickin' about trying 
to look like gals, tied as tight in the middle, and 
puffed out at both ends, like bundles of fodder that 
had n't been stacked yet, but wanted stackin' pretty 
bad. And then they had tables all around the 
house kivered over with [ ] caps and pincush- 

ions and ten thousand such little knick-knacks, tryin' 
to sell 'em to the fellows that were bowin', and 
scrapin' and kungeerin' about 'em. They would n't 
let no Democrats in, for fear they'd disgust the 
ladies, or scare the little gals, or dirty the floor. I 
looked in at the window, and there was this same 
fellow Shields floatin' about on the air, without heft 
or earthly substances, just like a lock of cat fur 
where cats had been fighting. 

"He was paying his money to this one, and that 
one, and t'other one, and sufferin' great loss because 
it wasn't silver instead of State paper; and the 
sweet distress he seemed to be in, — ^his very feat- 
ures, in the ecstatic agony of his soul, spoke audibly 
and distinctly, 'Dear girls, it is distressing, but I 
cannot marry you all. Too well I know how much 
you suffer; but do, do remember, it is not my fault 
that I am so handsome and so interesting.' 

"As this last was expressed by a most exquisite 
contortion of his face, he seized hold of one of their 
hands, and squeezed, and held on to it about a quar- 
ter of an hour. 'Oh, my good fellow!' says I to 
myself, 'if that was one of our Democratic gals in 
the Lost Townships, the way you'd get a brass pin 

VOL. I. — 19. 



290 The Writings of 

let into you would be about up to the head.' He 
a Democrat! Fiddlesticks! I tell you, Aunt 'Becca, 
he 's a Whig, and no mistake ; nobody but a Whig 
could make such a conceity dimce of himself." 

"Well," says I, "maybe he is; but, if he is, I 'm 
mistaken the worst sort. Maybe so, maybe so; 
but, if I am, I '11 suffer by it; I '11 be a Democrat if 
it turns out that Shields is a Whig, considerin' you 
shall be a Whig if he turns out a Democrat." 

"A bargain, by jingoes!" says he; "but how 
will we find out?" 

"Why," says I, "we'll just write and ax the 
printer." 

"Agreed again!" says he; "and by thunder! if 
it does turn out that Shields is a Democrat, I never 
will" 

' ' Jefferson ! Jefferson ! ' ' 

"What do you want, Peggy?" 

"Do get through your everlasting clatter some 
time, and bring me a gourd of water; the child 's 
been crying for a drink this livelong hour." 

"Let it die, then; it may as well die for water as 
to be taxed to death to fatten officers of State." 

Jeff run off to get the water, though, just like he 
hadn't been saying anything spiteful, for he's a 
raal good-hearted fellow, after all, once you get at 
the foundation of him. 

I walked into the house, and, "Why, Peggy," says 
I, "I declare we like to forgot you altogether." 

"Oh, yes," says she, "when a body can't help 
themselves, everybody soon forgets 'em; but, thank 
God! by day after to-morrow I shall be well enough 



Abraham Lincoln 291 

to milk the cows, and pen the calves, and wring the 
contrary ones' tails for 'em, and no thanks to 
nobody." 

"Good evening, Peggy," says I, and so I sloped, 
for I seed she was mad at me for making Jeff neg- 
lect her so long. 

And now, Mr. Printer, will you be sure to let -us 
know in your next paper whether this Shields is a 
Whig or a Democrat? I don't care about it for my- 
self, for I know well enough how it is already; but 
I want to convince Jeff. It may do some good to let 
him, and others like him, know who and what these 
officers of State are. It may help to send the pres- 
ent hypocritical set to where they belong, and to fill 
the places they now disgrace with men who will do 
more work for less pay, and take fewer airs while 
they are doing it. It ain't sensible to think that the 
same men who get us in trouble will change their 
course; and yet it 's pretty plain if some change 
for the better is not made, it's not long that either 
Peggy or I or any of us will have a cow left to milk, 
or a calf's tail to wring. 

Yours truly, 

Rebecca . 



INVITATION TO HENRY CLAY. 

Springfield, III., Aug 29, 1842. 

Hon. Henry Clay, Lexington, Ky. 

Dear Sir: — We hear you are to visit Indianap- 
olis, Indiana, on the 5th of October next. If our 



^9^ The Writings of 

information in this is correct we hope you will not 
deny us the pleasure of seeing you in our State. We 
are aware of the toil necessarily incident to a journey 
by one circumstanced as you are ; but once you have 
embarked, as you have already determined to do, 
the toil would not be greatly augmented by extend- 
ing the journey to our capital. The season of the 
year will be most favorable for good roads, and 
pleasant weather; and although we cannot but 
believe you would be highly gratified with such a 
visit to the prairie-land, the pleasure it would give 
us and thousands such as we is beyond all question. 
You have never visited Illinois, or at least this 
portion of it; and should you now yield to our 
request, we promise you such a reception as shall 
be worthy of the man on whom are now turned the 
fondest hopes of a great and suffering nation. 

Please inform us at the earliest convenience 
whether we may expect you. 

Very respectfully your obedient servants, 
A. G. Henry, A. T. Bledsoe, 

C. BiRCHALL, A. Lincoln, 

G. M. Cabanniss, Rob't Irwin, 
P. A. Saunders, J. M. Allen, 
F. N. Francis. 
Executive Committee ''Clay Club.'' 

(Clay's answer, SepterQber 6, 1842, declines with 
thanks.) 



Abraham Lincoln 293 

CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE LINCOLN-SHIELDS DUEL. 

Tremont, September 17, 1842. 

A. Lincoln, Esq. :— I regret that my absence on 
pubhc business compelled me to postpone a matter of 
private consideration a little longer than I could have 
desired. It will only be necessary, however, to ac- 
count for it by informing you that I have been to 
Quincy on business that would not admit of delay. 
I will now state briefly the reasons of my troubling 
you with this communication, the disagreeable na- 
ture of which I regret, as I had hoped to avoid 
any difficulty with any one in Springfield while 
residing there, by endeavoring to conduct myself in 
such a way amongst both my political friends and 
opponents as to escape the necessity of any. Whilst 
thus abstaining from giving provocation, I have 
become the object of slander, vituperation, and 
personal abuse, which were I capable of submitting 
to, I would prove myself worthy of the whole of it. 

In two or three of the last numbers of the Sanga- 
mon Journal, articles of the most personal nature 
and calculated to degrade me have made their ap- 
pearance. On inquiring, I was informed by the 
editor of that paper, through the medium of my 
friend General Whitesides, that you are the author 
of those articles. This information satisfies me that 
I have become by some means or other the object of 
your secret hostility. I will not take the trouble of 
inquiring into the reason of all this ; but I will take 
the liberty of requiring a full, positive, and absolute 
retraction of all offensive allusions used by you in 



294 The Writings of 

these communications, in relation to my private 
character and standing as a man, as an apology for 
the insults conveyed in them. 

This may prevent consequences which no one will 
regret more than myself. 

Your obedient servant, 

Jas. Shields. 
To J. Shields. 

Tremont, September 17, 1842. 

Jas. Shields, Esq. : — ^Your note of to-day was 
handed me by General Whitesides. In that note 
you say you have been informed, through the 
medium of the editor of the Journal, that I am the 
author of certain articles in that paper which you 
deem personally abusive of you; and without stop- 
ping to inquire whether I really am the author, or to 
point out what is offensive in them, you demand an 
unqualified retraction of all that is offensive, and 
then proceed to hint at consequences. 

Now, sir, there is in this so much assumption of 
facts and so much of menace as to consequences, that 
I cannot submit to answer that note any further 
than I have, and to add that the consequences to 
which I suppose you allude would be matter of as 
great regret to me as it possibly could to you. 

Respectfully, 

A. Lincoln. 
To A. Lincoln. 

Tremont, September 17, 1842. 

A. Lincoln, Esq. : — In reply to my note of this 
date, you intimate that I assume facts and menace 



Abraham Lincoln 295 

consequences, and that you cannot submit to an- 
swer it further. As now, sir, you desire it, I will be a 
little more particular. The editor of the Sangamon 
Journal gave me to understand that you are the 
author of an article which appeared, I think, in that 
paper of the 2d September instant, headed "The 
Lost Townships," and signed Rebecca or 'Becca. I 
would therefore take the liberty of asking whether 
you are the author of said article, or any other over 
the same signature which has appeared in any of the 
late numbers of that paper. If so, I repeat my 
request of an absolute retraction of all offensive 
allusions contained therein in relation to my private 
character and standing. If you are not the author 
of any of these articles, your denial will be sufacient. 
I will say further, it is not my intention to menace, 
but to do myself justice. 

Your obedient servant, 

Jas. Shields. 

Memorandum of Instructions to E. H. Merryman, 
Lincoln's Second, September ig, 1842. 
In case Whitesides shall signify a wish to adjust 
this affair without further difficulty, let him know 
that if the present papers be withdrawn, and a note 
from Mr. Shields asking to know if I am the author 
of the articles of which he complains, and asking 
that I shall make him gentlemanly satisfaction if I 
am the author, and this without menace, or dictation 
as to what that satisfaction shall be, a pledge is 
made that the following answer shall be given : 

"I did write the 'Lost Townships' letter which 



296 The Writings of 

appeared in the Journal of the 2d instant, but had no 
participation in any form in any other article allud- 
ing to you. I wrote that wholly for political effect — 
I had no intention of injuring your personal or private 
character or standing as a man or a gentleman ; and 
I did not then think, and do not now think, that that 
article could produce or has produced that effect 
against you; and had I anticipated such an effect I 
would have forborne to write it. And I will add 
that your conduct toward me, so far as I know, had 
always been gentlemanly ; and that I had no personal 
pique against you, and no cause for any." 

If this should be done, I leave it with you to 
arrange what shall and what shall not be published. 
If nothing like this is done, the preliminaries of the 
fight are to be — 

First. Weapons: Cavalry broadswords of the 
largest size, precisely equal in all respects, and such 
as now used by the cavalry company at Jacksonville. 

Second. Position: A plank ten feet long, and 
from nine to twelve inches broad, to be firmly fixed 
on edge, on the ground, as the line between us, which 
neither is to pass his foot over upon forfeit of his life. 
Next a line drawn on the ground on either side of 
said plank and parallel with it, each at the distance 
of the whole length of the sword and three feet 
additional from the plank; and the passing of his 
own such line by either party during the fight shall 
be deemed a surrender of the contest. 

Third. Time: On Thursday evening at five o'clock, 
if you can get it so ; but in no case to be at a greater 
distance of time than Friday evening at five o'clock. 



Abraham Lincoln 297 

Fourth. Place : Within three miles of Alton, on the 
opposite side of the river, the particular spot to be 
agreed on by you. 

Any preliminary details coming within the above 
rules you are at liberty to make at your discretion; 
but you are in no case to swerve from these rules, or 
to pass beyond their limits. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, October [4?], 1842. 

Dear Speed: — ^You have heard of my duel with 
Shields, and I have now to inform you that the 
duelling business still rages in this city. Day before 
yesterday Shields challenged Butler, who accepted, 
and proposed fighting next morning at sunrise in 
Bob Allen's meadow, one hundred yards' distance, 
with rifles. To this Whitesides, Shields 's second, 
said "No," because of the law. Thus ended duel 
No. 2. Yesterday Whitesides chose to consider 
himself insulted by Dr. Merryman, so sent him a 
kind of quasi-challenge, inviting him to meet him at 
the Planter's House in St. Louis on the next Friday, 
to settle their difficulty. Merryman made me his 
friend, and sent Whitesides a note, inquiring to 
know if he meant his note as a challenge, and if so, 
that he would, according to the law in such case 
made and provided, prescribe the terms of the 
meeting. Whitesides returned for answer that if 
Merryman would meet him at the Planter's House 
as desired, he would challenge him. Merryman 



298 The Writings of 

replied in a note that he denied Whitesides's right 
to dictate time and place, but that he (Merryman) 
would waive the question of time, and meet him at 
Louisiana, Missouri. Upon my presenting this note 
to Whitesides and stating verbally its contents, he 
declined receiving it, saying he had business in St. 
Louis, and it was as near as Louisiana. Merryman 
then directed me to notify Whitesides that he should 
publish the correspondence between them, with such 
comments as he thought fit. This I did. Thus it 
stood at bedtime last night. This morning White- 
sides, by his friend Shields, is praying for a new trial, 
on the ground that he was mistaken in Merryman 's 
proposition to meet him at Louisiana, Missouri, 
thinking it was the State of Louisiana. This Merry- 
man hoots at, and is preparing his publication; 
while the town is in a ferment, and a street fight 
somewhat anticipated. 

But I began this letter not for what I have been 
writing, but to say something on that subject which 
you know to be of such infinite solicitude to me. 
The immense sufferings you endured from the first 
days of September till the middle of February you 
never tried to conceal from me, and I well understood. 
You have now been the husband of a lovely woman 
nearly eight months. That you are happier now 
than the day you married her I well know, for with- 
out you could not be living. But I have your word 
for it, too, and the returning elasticity of spirits 
which is manifested in your letters. But I want to 
ask a close question, "Are you now in feeling as well 
as judgment glad that you are married as you are?" 



Abraham Lincoln 299 

From anybody but me this would be an impudent 
question, not to be tolerated; but I know you will 
pardon it in me. Please answer it quickly, as I am 
impatient to know. I have sent my love to your 
Fanny so often, I fear she is getting tired of it. 
However, I venture to tender it again. 

Yours forever, 

Lincoln. 



RESOLUTIONS AT A WHIG MEETING AT SPRINGFIELD, 
ILLINOIS, MARCH I, 1843. 

The object of the meeting was stated by Mr. 
Lincoln of Springfield, who offered the following reso- 
lutions, which were unanimously adopted : 

Resolved, That a tariff of duties on imported goods, 
producing sufficient revenue for the payment of the 
necessary expenditures of the National Government, 
and so adjusted as to protect American industry, 
is indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the 
American people. 

Resolved, That we are opposed to direct taxation 
for the support of the National Government. 

Resolved, That a national bank, properly restricted, 
is highly necessary and proper to the establishment 
and maintenance of a sound currency, and for the 
cheap and safe collection, keeping, and disbursing of 
the public revenue. 

Resolved, That the distribution of the proceeds of 
the sales of the public lands, upon the principles 
of Mr. Clay's bill, accords with the best interests of 



300 The Writings of 

the nation, and particularly with those of the State of 
Illinois. 

Resolved, That we recommend to the Whigs of each 
Congressional district of the State to nominate and 
support at the approaching election a candidate of 
their own principles, regardless of the chances of 
success. 

Resolved, That we recommend to thi Whigs of all 
portions of the State to adopt and rigidly adhere to 
the convention system of nominating candidates. 

Resolved, That we recomi end to the Whigs of 
each Congressional district to hold a district conven- 
tion on or before the first Monday of May next, to be 
composed of a number of delegates from each county 
equal to double the n mber of its representatives 
in the General Assembly, provided, each county shall 
have at least one delegate. Said delegates to be 
chosen by primary meetings of the Whigs, at such 
times and places as they in their respective counties 
may see fit. Said district conventions each to 
nominate one candidate for Congress, and one dele- 
gate to a national convention for the purpose of 
nominating candidates for President and Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. The seven delegates so 
nominated to a national convention to have power to 
add two delegates to their own number, and to fill all 
vacancies. 

Resolved, That A. T. Bledsoe, S. T. Logan, and A. 
Lincoln be appointed a committee to prepare an 
address to the people of the State. 

Resolved, That N. W. Edwards, A. G. Henry, 
James H. Matheny, John C. Doremus, and James C. 



Abraham Lincoln 30i 

Conkling be appointed a Whig Central State Com- 
mittee, with authority to fill any vacancy that may 
occur in the committee. 

CIRCULAR FROM WHIG COMMITTEE. 

Address to the People of Illinois. 
Fellow-Citizens :— By a resolution of a meeting 
of such of the Whigs of the State as are now at 
Springfield, we, the undersigned, were appointed to 
prepare an address to you. The performance of 
that task we now imdertake. 

Several resolutions were adopted by the meeting; 
and the chief object of this address is to show briefly 
the reasons for their adoption. 

The first of those resolutions declares a tariff of 
duties upon foreign importations, producing sufficient 
revenue for the support of th3 General Gcvemmmt, 
and so adjusted as to protect American industry, to 
be indispensably necessary to the prosperity of the 
American people; and the second declares direct 
taxation for a national revenue to be improper. 
Those two resolutions are kindr-d in their nature, 
and therefore proper and convenient to be considered 
together. The question of protection is a subject 
entirely too broad to be crowded into a few pages 
only, together with several other subjects. On that 
point we therefore content ourselves with giving the 
following extracts from the writings of Mr. Jefferson, 
General Jackson, and the speech of Mr. Calhoun: 

"To be independent for the comforts of life, we 
must fabricate them ourselves. We must now place 



302 The Writings of 

the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturalist. 
The grand inquiry now is, Shall we make our own 
comforts, or g( without them at the will of a foreign 
nation ? He, therefore, who is now against domestic 
manufactures must be for reducing us either to 
dependence on that foreign nation, or to be clothed 
in skins and to live like wild beasts in dens and 
caverns. I am not one of those; experience has 
taught me that manufactures are now as necessary 
to our independence as to our comfort." — Letter of 
Mr. Jefferson to Benjamin Austin. 

" I ask. What is the real situation of the agricultu- 
ralist? Where has the American farmer a market 
for his surplus produce ? Except for cotton, he has 
neither a foreign nor a home market. Does not this 
clearly prove, when there is no market at home or 
abroad, that there [is] too much labor employed in 
agriculture? Common sense at once points out the 
remedy. Take from agriculture six hundred thou- 
sand men, women, and children, and you will at once 
give a market for more breadstuffs than all Europe 
now furnishes. In short, we have been too long 
subject to the policy of British merchants. It is 
time we should become a little more Americanized, 
and instead of feeding the paupers and laborers of 
England, feed our own; or else in a short time, by 
continuing our present policy, we shall all be rendered 
paupers ourselves." — General Jackson's Letter to Dr. 
Coleman. 

* ' When our manufactures are grown to a certain 
perfection, as they soon will be, under the fostering 
care of government, the farmer will find a ready 



Abraham Lincoln 303 

market for his surplus produce, and — ^what is of 
equal consequence — a certain and cheap supply of all 
he wants; his prosperity will diffuse itself to every 
class of the community." — Speech of Hon. J. C. 
Calhoun on the Tariff. 

The question of revenue we will now briefly con- 
sider. For several years past the revenues of the 
government have been unequal to its expenditures, 
and consequently loan after loan, sometimes direct 
and sometimes indirect in form, has been resorted to. 
By this means a new national debt has been created, 
and is still growing on us with a rapidity fearful 
to contemplate — a rapidity only reasonably to be 
expected in time of war. This state of things has 
been produced by a prevailing unwillingness either 
to increase the tariff or resort to direct taxation. 
But the one or the other must come. Coming 
expenditures must be met, and the present debt 
must be paid ; and money cannot always be borrowed 
for these objects. The system of loans is but tem- 
porary in its nature, and must soon explode. It is a 
system not only ruinous while it lasts, but one that 
must soon fail and leave us destitute. As an in- 
dividual who undertakes to live by borrowing soon 
finds his original means devoured by interest, and, 
next, no one left to borrow from, so must it be with a 
government. 

We repeat, then, that a tariff sufficient for revenue, 
or a direct tax, must soon be resorted to ; and, indeed, 
we believe this alternative is now denied by no one. 
But which system shall be adopted? Some of our 



304 The Writings of 

opponents, in theory, admit the propriety of a tariff 
sufficient for a revenue, but even they will not in 
practice vote for such a tariff; while others boldly 
advocate direct taxation. Inasmuch, therefore, as 
some of them boldly advocate direct taxation, and 
all the rest — or so nearly all as to make exceptions 
needless — ^refuse to adopt the tariff, we think it is 
doing them no injustice to class them all as advo- 
cates of direct taxation. Indeed, we believe they 
are only delaying an open avowal of the system till 
they can assure themselves that the people will 
tolerate it. Let us, then, briefly compare the two 
systems. The tariff is the cheaper system, because 
the duties, being collected in large parcels at a few 
commercial points, will require comparatively few 
officers in their collection; while by the direct -tax 
system the land must be literally covered with 
assessors and collectors, going forth like swarms of 
Egyptian locusts, devouring every blade of grass and 
other green thing. And, again, by the tariff system 
the whole revenue is paid by the consumers of foreign 
goods, and those chiefly the luxuries, and not the 
necessaries, of life. By this system the man who 
contents himself to live upon the products of his own 
country pays nothing at all. And surely that coun- 
try is extensive enough, and its products abundant 
and varied enough, to answer all the real wants of its 
people. In short, by this system the burthen of 
revenue falls almost entirely on the wealthy and 
luxurious few, while the substantial and laboring 
many who live at home, and upon- home products, 
go entirely free. By the direct-tax system none can 



Abraham Lincoln 305 

escape. However strictly the citizen may exclude 
from his premises all foreign luxuries, — fine cloths, 
fine silks, rich wines, golden chains, and diamond 
rings, — still, for the possession of his house, his bam, 
and his homespun, he is to be perpetually haunted 
and harassed by the tax-gatherer. With these views 
we leave it to be determined whether we or our op- 
ponents are the more truly democratic on the 
subject. 

The third resolution declares the necessity and 
propriety of a national bank. During the last fifty 
years so much has been said and written both as to 
the constitutionality and expediency of such an in- 
stitution, that we could not hope to improve in the 
least on former discussions of the subject, were we to 
undertake it. We, therefore, upon the question of 
constitutionality content ourselves with remarking 
the facts that the first national bank was established 
chiefly by the same men who formed the Constitu- 
tion, at a time when that instrument was but two 
years old, and receiving the sanction, as President, of 
the immortal Washington ; that the second received 
the sanction, as President, of Mr. Madison, to whom 
common consent has awarded the proud title of 
"Father of the Constitution"; and subsequently 
the sanction of the Supreme Court, the most en- 
lightened judicial tribunal in the world. Upon the 
question of expediency, we only ask you to examine 
the history of the times during the existence of the 
two banks, and compare those times with the miser- 
able present. 

The fourth resolution declares the expediency of 



VOL. I. 20. 



3o6 The Writings of 

Mr, Clay's land bill. Much incomprehensible jar- 
gon is often used against the constitutionality of this 
measure. We forbear, in this place, attempting an 
answer to it, simply because, in our opinion, those 
who urge it are through party zeal resolved not to 
see or acknowledge the truth. The question of ex- 
pediency, at least so far as Illinois is concerned, 
seems to us the clearest imaginable. By the bill 
we are to receive annually a large sum of money, no 
part of which we otherwise receive. The precise 
annual sum cannot be known in advance; it doubt- 
less will vary in different years. Still it is something 
to know that in the last year — a year of almost un- 
paralleled pecuniary pressure — ^it amovmted to more 
than forty thousand dollars. This annual income, in 
the midst of our almost insupportable difficulties, in 
the days of our severest necessity, our political op- 
ponents are furiously resolving to take and keep from 
us. And for what? Many silly reasons are given, 
as is usual in cases where a single good one is not to 
be found. One is that by giving us the proceeds of 
the lands we impoverish the national treasury, and 
thereby render necessar}^ an increase of the tariff. 
This may be true ; but if so, the amount of it only is 
that those whose pride, whose abundance of means, 
prompt them to spurn the manufactures of our 
country, and to strut in British cloaks and coats and 
pantaloons, may have to pay a few cents more on 
the yard for the cloth that makes them. A terrible 
evil, truly, to the Illinois farmer, who never wore, 
nor ever expects to wear, a single yard of British 
goods in his whole life. Another of their reasons is 



Abraham Lincoln 307 

that by the passage and continuance of Mr. Clay's 
bill, we prevent the passage of a bill which would 
give us more. This, if it were sound in itself, is 
waging destructive war with the former position; 
for if Mr. Clay's bill impoverishes the treasury too 
much, what shall be said of one that impoverishes it 
still more? But it is not sound in itself. It is not 
true that Mr. Clay's bill prevents the passage of one 
more favorable to us of the new States. Considering 
the strength and opposite interest of the old States, 
the wonder is that they ever permitted one to pass 
so favorable as Mr. Clay's. The last twenty-odd 
years' efforts to reduce the price of the lands, and to 
pass graduation bills and cession bills, prove the 
assertion to be true ; and if there were no experience 
in support of it, the reason itself is plain. The States 
in which none, or few, of the public lands lie, and 
those consequently interested against parting with 
them except for the best price, are the majority; 
and a moment's reflection will show that they must 
ever continue the majority, because by the time one 
of the original new States (Ohio, for example) be- 
comes populous and gets weight in Congress, the 
public lands in her limits are so nearly sold out that 
in every point material to this question she becomes 
an old State. She does not wish the price reduced, 
because there is none left for her citizens to buy; 
she does not wish them ceded to the States in which 
they lie, because they no longer lie in her limits, and 
she will get nothing by the cession. In the nature of 
things, the States interested in the reduction of 
price, in graduation, in cession, and in all similar 



3o8 The Writings of 

projects, never can be the majority. Nor is there 
reason to hope that any of them can ever succeed as 
a Democratic party measure, because we have here- 
tofore seen that party in full power, year after year, 
with many of their leaders making loud professions 
in favor of these projects, and yet doing nothing. 
What reason, then, is there to believe they will here- 
after do better ? In every light in which we can view 
this question, it amounts simply to this: Shall we 
accept our share of the proceeds imder Mr. Clay's bill, 
or shall we rather reject that and get nothing ? 

The fifth resolution recommends that a Whig 
candidate for Congress be run in every district, 
regardless of the chances of success. We are aware 
that it is sometimes a temporary gratification, when 
a friend cannot succeed, to be able to choose between 
opponents; but we believe that that gratification is 
the seed-time which never fails to be followed by a 
most abundant harvest of bitterness. By this policy 
we entangle ourselves. By voting for our opponents, 
such of us as do it in some measure estop ourselves 
to complain of their acts, however glaringly wrong 
we may believe them to be. By this policy no one 
portion of our friends can ever be certain as to what 
course another portion may adopt; and by this 
want of mutual and perfect understanding our 
political identity is partially frittered away and lost. 
And, again, those who are thus elected by our aid 
ever become our bitterest persecutors. Take a few 
prominent examples. In 1830 Reynolds was elected 
Governor; in 1835 we exerted our whole strength to 
elect Judge Young to the United States Senate, which 



Abraham Lincoln 309 

effort, though failing, gave him the prominence that 
subsequently elected him; in 1836 General Ewing 
was so elected to the United States Senate ; and yet 
let us ask what three men have been more persever- 
ingly vindictive in their assaults upon all our men 
and measures than they? During the last summer 
the whole State was covered with pamphlet editions 
of misrepresentations against us, methodized into 
chapters and verses, written by two of these same men, 
— Reynolds and Young, — in which they did not stop at 
charging us with error merely, but roundly denounced 
us as the designing enemies of human liberty itself. 
If it be the will of Heaven that such men shall po- 
litically live, be it so; but never, never again permit 
them to draw a particle of their sustenance from us. 
The sixth resolution recommends the adoption of 
the convention system for the nomination of candi- 
dates. This we believe to be of the very first import- 
ance. Whether the system is right in itself we do 
not stop to inquire ; contenting ourselves with trying 
to show that, while our opponents use it, it is madness 
in us not to defend ourselves with it. Experience 
has shown that we cannot successfully defend our- 
selves without it. For examples, look at the elec- 
tions of last year. Our candidate for governor, with 
the approbation of a large portion of the party, took 
the field without a nomination, and in open opposi- 
tion to the system. Wherever in the counties the 
Whigs had held conventions and nominated candi- 
dates for the Legislature, the aspirants who were 
not nominated were induced to rebel against the 
nominations, and to become candidates, as is said, 



3IO The Writings of 

"on their own hook." And, go where you would 
into a large Whig county, you were sure to find the 
Whigs not contending shoulder to shoulder against 
the common enemy, but divided into factions, and 
fighting furiously with one another. The election 
came, and what was the result? The governor 
beaten — ^the Whig vote being decreased many thou- 
sands since 1840, although the Democratic vote had 
not increased any. Beaten almost everywhere for 
members of the Legislature, — Tazewell, with her four 
hundred Whig majority, sending a delegation half 
Democratic; Vermillion, with her five hundred, doing 
the same ; Coles, with her four hundred, sending two 
out of three ; and Morgan, with her two hundred and 
fifty, sending three out of four, — and this to say no- 
thing of the numerous other less glaring examples ; 
the whole winding up with the aggregate number of 
twenty-seven Democratic representatives sent from 
Whig counties. As to the senators, too, the result 
was of the same character. And it is most worthy to 
be remembered that of all the Whigs in the State who 
ran against the regular nominees, a single one only 
was elected. Although they succeeded in defeating 
the nominees almost by scores, they too were 
defeated, and the spoils chucklingly borne off by the 
common enemy. 

We do not mention the fact of many of the Whigs 
opposing the convention system heretofore for the 
purpose of censuring them. Far from it. We 
expressly protest against such a conclusion. We 
know they were generally, perhaps universally, as 
good and true Whigs as we ourselves claim to be. 



Abraham Lincoln 311 

We mention it merely to draw attention to the 
disastrous result it produced, as an example forever 
hereafter to be avoided. That "union is strength" 
is a truth that has been known, illustrated, and 
declared in various ways and forms in all ages of the 
world. That great fabulist and philosopher ^sop 
illustrated it by his fable of the bundle of sticks; 
and he whose wisdom surpasses that of all philoso- 
phers has declared that "a house divided against 
itself cannot stand." It is to induce our friends to 
act upon this important and universally acknow- 
ledged truth that we urge the adoption of the con- 
vention system. Reflection will prove that there is 
no other way of practically applying it. In its ap- 
plication we know there will be incidents temporarily 
painful; but, after all, those incidents will be fewer 
and less intense with than without the system. If 
two friends aspire to the same office it is certain that 
both cannot succeed. Would it not, then, be much 
less painful to have the question decided by mutual 
friends some time before, than to snarl and quarrel 
until the day of election, and then both be beaten 
by the common enemy ? 

Before leaving this subject, we think proper to 
remark that we do not understand the resolution as 
intended to recommend the application of the con- 
vention system to the nomination of candidates for 
the small offices no way connected with politics; 
though we must say we do not perceive that such an 
application of it would be wrong. 

The seventh resolution recommends the holding of 
district conventions in May next, for the purpose of 



3^2 The Writings of 

nominating candidates for Congress. The propriety 
of this rests upon the same reasons with that of the 
sixth, and therefore needs no further discussion. 

The eighth and ninth also relate merely to the 
practical application of the foregoing, and therefore 
need no discussion. 

Before closing, permit us to add a few reflections 
on the present condition and future prospects of the 
Whig party. In almost all the States we have fallen 
into the minority, and despondency seems to prevail 
universally among us. Is there just cause for this? 
In 1840 we carried the nation by more than a hun- 
dred and forty thousand majority. Our opponents 
charged that we did it by fraudulent voting; but 
whatever they may have believed, we know the 
charge to be untrue. Where, now, is that mighty 
host? Have they gone over to the enemy? Let 
the results of the late elections answer. Every 
State which has fallen off from the Whig cause since 
1840 has done so not by giving more Democratic 
votes than they did then, but by giving fewer Whig. 
Bouck, who was elected Democratic Governor of 
New York last fall by more than 15,000 majority, 
had not then as many votes as he had in 1840, when 
he was beaten by seven or eight thousand. And so 
has it been in all the other States which have fallen 
away from our cause. From this it is evident that 
tens of thousands in the late elections have not voted 
at all. Who and what are they? is an important 
question, as respects the future. They can come 
forward and give us the victory again. That all, or 
nearly all, of them are Whigs is most apparent. Our 



Abraham Lincoln 313 

opponents, stung to madness by the defeat of 1840, 
have ever since rallied with more than their usual 
unanimity. It has not been they that have been 
kept from the polls. These facts show what the 
result must be, once the people again rally in their 
entire strength. Proclaim these facts, and predict 
this result ; and although unthinking opponents may 
smile at us, the sagacious ones will "believe and 
tremble." And why shall the Whigs not all rally 
again? Are their principles less dear now than in 
1840? Have any of their doctrines since then been 
discovered to be untrue? It is true, the victory of 
1 840 did not produce the happy results anticipated ; 
but it is equally true, as we believe, that the unfortu- 
nate death of General Harrison was the cause of the 
failure. It was not the election of General Harrison 
that was expected to produce happy effects, but the 
measures to be adopted by his administration. By 
means of his death, and the unexpected course of his 
successor, those measures were never adopted. How 
could the fruits follow ? The consequences we always 
predicted would follow the failure of those measures 
have followed, and are now upon us in all their 
horrors. By the course of Mr. Tyler the policy of 
our opponents has continued in operation, still leav- 
ing them with the advantage of charging all its evils 
upon us as the results of a Whig administration. 
Let none be deceived by this somewhat plausible, 
though entirely false charge. If they ask us for the 
sufficient and sound currency we promised, let them 
be answered that we only promised it through the 
medium of a national bank, which they, aided by 



314 The Writings of 

Mr. Tyler, prevented our establishing. And let them 
be reminded, too, that their own policy in relation to 
the currency has all the time been, and still is, in 
full operation. Let us then again come forth in our 
might, and by a second victory accomplish that 
which death prevented in the first. We can do it. 
When did the Whigs ever fail if they were fully 
aroused and united? Even in single States, under 
such circumstances, defeat seldom overtakes them. 
Call to mind the contested elections within the last 
few years, and particularly those of Moore and 
Letcher from Kentucky, Newland and Graham from 
North Carolina, and the famous New Jersey case. 
In all these districts Locofocoism had stalked 
omnipotent before ; but when the whole people were 
aroused by its enormities on those occasions, they 
put it down, never to rise again. 

We declare it to be our solemn conviction, that 
the Whigs are always a majority of this nation; 
and that to make them always successful needs but 
to get them all to the polls and to vote unitedly. 
This is the great desideratum. Let us make every 
effort to attain it. At every election, let every 
Whig act as though he knew the result to depend 
upon his action. In the great contest of 1840 some 
more than twenty one hundred thousand votes were 
cast, and so surely as there shall be that many, with 
the ordinary increase added, cast in 1 844 that surely 
will a Whig be elected President of the United States. 

A. Lincoln. 

S. T. Logan. 

March 4, 1843. * A. T. BlEDSOE. 



Abraham Lincoln 315 

TO JOHN BENNETT. 

Springfield, March 7, 1843. 

Friend Bennett: 

Your letter of this day was handed me by Mr. 
Miles. It is too late now to effect the object you 
desire. On yesterday morning the most of the Whig 
members from this district got together and agreed 
to hold the convention at Tremont in Tazewell 
County. I am sorry to hear that any of the Whigs 
of your county, or indeed of any county, should 
longer be against conventions. On last Wednesday 
evening a meeting of all the Whigs then here from 
all parts of the State was held, and the question of 
the propriety of conventions was brought up and 
fully discussed, and at the end of the discussion 
a resolution recommending the system of conven- 
tions to all the Whigs of the State was unanimously 
adopted. Other resolutions were also passed, all of 
which will appear in the next Journal. The meeting 
also appointed a committee to draft an address to 
the people of the State, which address will also 
appear in the next Journal. 

In it you will find a brief argument in favor of 
conventions — and although I wrote it myself I will 
say to you that it is conclusive upon the point and 
can not be reasonably answered. The right way for 
you to do is hold your meeting and appoint delegates 
any how, and if there be any who will not take part, 
let it be so. The matter will work so well this time 
that even they who now oppose will come in next 
time. 



3i6 The Writings of 

The convention is to be held at Tremont on the 
5th of April and according to the rule we have 
adopted your county is to have delegsctes — ^being 
double the number of your representation. 

If there be any good Whig who is disposed to stick 
out against conventions get him at least to read the 
argument in their favor in the address. 

Yours as ever, 
A. Lincoln. 



TO JOSHUA F. SPEED. 

Springfield, March 24, 1843. 

Dear Speed : — We had a meeting of the Whigs of 
the county here on last Monday to appoint delegates 
to a district convention ; and Baker beat me, and got 
the delegation instructed to go for him. The meet- 
ing, in spite of my attempt to decline it, appointed 
me one of the delegates; so that in getting Baker the 
nomination I shall be fixed a good deal like a fellow 
who is made a groomsman to a man that has cut him 
out and is marrying his own dear "gal." About the 
prospects of your having a namesake at our town, 
can't say exactly yet. 

A. Lincoln. 



TO MARTIN M. MORRIS. 

Springfield, III., March 26, 1843. 



Friend Morris: 

Your letter of the 23d, was received on yesterday 
morning, and for which (instead of an excuse, which 
you thought proper to ask) I tender you my sincere 



Abraham Lincoln 317 

thanks. It is truly gratifying to me to learn that, 
while the people of Sangamon have cast me off, my 
old friends of Menard, who have known me longest 
and best, stick to me. It would astonish, if not 
amuse, the older citizens to learn that I (a stranger, 
friendless, uneducated, penniless boy, working on a 
flatboat at ten dollars per month) have been put 
down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, and 
aristocratic family distinction. Yet so, chiefly, it 
was. There was, too, the strangest combination of 
church influence against me. Baker is a Campbell- 
ite ; and therefore, as I suppose, with few exceptions 
got all that church. My wife has some relations in 
the Presbyterian churches, and some with the 
Episcopal churches; and therefore, wherever it 
would tell, I was set down as either the one or the 
other, while it was everywhere contended that no 
Christian ought to go for me, because I belonged to 
no church, was suspected of being a deist, and had 
talked about fighting a duel. With all these things. 
Baker, of course, had nothing to do. Nor do I 
complain of them. As to his own church going for 
him, I think that was right enough, and as to the 
influences I have spoken of in the other, though they 
were very strong, it would be grossly untrue and 
unjust to charge that they acted upon them in a body 
or were very near so. I only mean that those influ- 
ences levied a tax of a considerable per cent, upon 
my strength throughout the religious controversy. 
But enough of this. 

You say that in choosing a candidate for Congress 
you have an equal right with Sangamon, and in this 



3i8 The Writings of 

you are undoubtedly correct. In agreeing to with- 
draw if the Whigs of Sangamon should go against me, 
I did not mean that they alone were worth consulting, 
but that if she, with her heavy delegation, should be 
against me, it would be impossible for me to succeed, 
and therefore I had as well decline. And in relation 
to Menard having rights, permit me fully to recognize 
them, and to express the opinion that, if she and 
Mason act circumspectly, they will in the convention 
be able so far to enforce their rights as to decide 
absolutely which one of the candidates shall be 
successful. Let me show the reason of this. Har- 
din, or some other Morgan candidate, will get Put- 
nam, Marshall, Woodford, Tazewell, and Logan — 
making sixteen. Then you and Mason, having 
three, can give the victory to either side. 

You say you shall instruct your delegates for me, 
unless I object. I certainly shall not object. That 
would be too pleasant a compliment for me to tread 
in the dust. And besides, if an3rthing should happen 
(which, however, is not probable) by which Baker 
should be thrown out of the fight, I would be at lib- 
erty to accept the nomination if I could get it. I do, 
however, feel myself bound not to hinder him in any 
way from getting the nomination. I should despise 
myself were I to attempt it. I think, then, it would 
be proper for your meeting to appoint three delegates 
and to instruct them to go for some one as the first 
choice, some one else as a second, and perhaps some 
one as a third; and if in those instructions I were 
named as the first choice, it would gratify me very 
much. If you wish to hold the balance of power, 



Abraham Lincoln 319 

it is important for you to attend to and secure the 
vote of Mason also. You should be sure to have 
men appointed delegates that you know you can 
safely confide in. If yourself and James Short were 
appointed from your county, all would be safe ; but 
whether Jim's woman affair a year ago might not be 
in the way of his appointment is a question. I don't 
know whether you know it, but I know him to be as 
honorable a man as there is in the world. You have 
my permission, and even request, to show this letter 
to Short; btit to no one else, unless it be a very 
particular friend who you know will not speak of it. 

Yours as ever, 

A. Lincoln. 

P. S. — ^Will you write me again? 



TO GEN. J. J. HARDIN. 

Springfield, May ii, 1843. 

Friend Hardin: 

Butler informs me that he received a letter from 
you, in which you expressed some doubt whether the 
Whigs of Sangamon will support you cordially. You 
may, at once, dismiss all fears on that subject. We 
have already resolved to make a particular effort to 
give you the very largest majority possible in our 
county. From this, no Whig of the county dissents. 
We have many objects for doing it. We make it a 
matter of honor and pride to do it ; we do it because 
we love the Whig cause ; we do it because we like you 
personally ; and last, we wish to convince you that 



320 Writings of Abraham Lincoln 

we do not bear that hatred to Morgan County that 
you people have so long seemed to imagine. You 
will see by the journals of this week that we propose, 
upon pain of losing a barbecue, to give you twice as 
great a majority in this county as you shall receive 
in your own. I got up the proposal. 

Who of the five appointed is to write the district 
address ? I did the labor of writing one address this 
year, and got thunder for my reward. Nothing new 
here. 

Yours as ever, 

A. Lincoln. 

P. S. — I wish you would measure one of the largest 
of those swords we took to Alton and write me the 
length of it, from tip of the point to tip of the hilt, 
in feet and inches. I have a dispute about the 
length. 

A. L. 



END OF VOL. I. 



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